Draft Guidelines on Holistic Evaluation

Historically, at SLU as at many other institutions, the formal evaluation of teaching has over-relied on end-of-term student feedback.[1]  Some academic units have made strides in adopting more holistic evidence-based approaches. However, across the University, evaluation practices are quite varied and inconsistently aligned with the research literature, and at times undermine fairness and equity in faculty personnel decisions. For these reasons, the Faculty Senate called for significant change in how faculty are evaluated, with a particular emphasis on reforming the evaluation of teaching.

The Teaching Effectiveness Project was launched to address these concerns, at the behest of the Faculty Senate and with the support of the Provost. The project aims to better define, document, enhance, evaluate, and recognize effective teaching in meaningful ways that align with SLU’s institutional identity. Phase 1 focused on developing SLU’s Teaching Effectiveness Framework. Approved in May 2025, the Framework now serves as the foundation for all future efforts to improve the ways in which SLU evaluates, recognizes, and rewards teaching.

Phase 2 is focused on developing the parameters of a holistic system of teaching evaluation at SLU, which is the focus of this document. Future phases will focus on implementing the holistic system of evaluation (see below for more on what this might look like).

When the new system is fully implemented[2], the evaluation of teaching by full-time faculty members in all academic units should better align with the literature on holistic evaluation of teaching. This will raise the visibility of excellent teaching, make faculty evaluation fairer and more equitable, and strengthen teaching effectiveness across the University.

[1] It’s important to note that, since 2018, SLU’s Policy on End-of-Term Course Feedback Surveys specifically prohibits the use of such surveys as the “sole measure of a faculty member’s teaching performance or as the sole measure of the value/quality of a course” and indicates that such surveys should only be used “as one element of a multi-faceted, comprehensive faculty evaluation protocol in which multiple measures of teaching performance are reviewed.” This policy already implies that units should be evaluating teaching in a holistic manner, using multiple sources of evidence.  

[2] It will take several years to fully implement a holistic system of teaching evaluation. See below for the team’s current thinking about how future work might unfold.

The Project has consistently been guided by several key commitments:

• SLU’s Catholic, Jesuit identity – our values as an institution and our identity as a Jesuit university inform all three dimensions of SLU’s Teaching Effectiveness Framework. Jesuit education is human-centered and prioritizes learning that transcends technical knowledge and instruction that actively engages students in meaningful ways. Any holistic system of evaluation adopted at SLU must be grounded in these values.

• Research-informed practice that supports equitable faculty evaluation – the research on effective teaching and learning is robust and includes both scholarship embedded within all academic disciplines and scholarship that transcends discipline (including research from the learning sciences). The research on responsible, holistic evaluation of teaching is also now well-documented. Prioritizing research-informed practices – both in teaching and in the evaluation of it – helps to ensure fairness and equity in faculty performance evaluation by reducing the potential impacts of human biases and by raising the visibility of teaching-related work that often falls disproportionately to women faculty and faculty of color. Any holistic system of evaluation adopted at SLU must prioritize both research-informed teaching practices and research-informed evaluation practices.

• The highly contextualized nature of teaching – both the research literature and Ignatian pedagogy make clear there is no one-size-fits-all approach to teaching and no specific instructional methods will be right for all contexts. There are evidence-based features of effective teaching that all instructors should adopt; many of these appear as Essential Practices in SLU’s Teaching Effectiveness Framework. However, the ways in which each instructor demonstrates those Essential Practices will vary, based on discipline, students, teaching philosophies, course levels, course types, and other contextual factors (including instructors’ own development as teachers). Any holistic system of evaluation adopted at SLU must allow for individual instructional autonomy and disciplinary customization, balanced by consistency, wherever possible.

• A comprehensive and growth-oriented conception of the work of “teaching” – teaching is much more than what happens within the confines of a classroom or an online course, and the work of becoming an effective teacher is never complete. Thus, SLU’s Teaching Effectiveness Framework includes the often-invisible work of teaching (such as course design and preparation) and prioritizes instructor development over time. Any holistic system of evaluation adopted at SLU must consider the work that happens before, during, and after courses; it also must treat teaching as a living, evolving process, which continues throughout one’s teaching career.

The holistic evaluation of teaching – the focus of this project – is just one component of a faculty member’s performance review (annual, mid-point, tenure, promotion).  Below are the key differences between the holistic evaluation of a faculty member and the holistic evaluation of a faculty member’s teaching. (The focus here is on full-time faculty members, regardless of appointment type or rank, since most SLU instructors are full-time faculty.) Note: in the PDF version of these DRAFT Guidelines, this information appears as Table 1. You can also download it as a print-friendly table here, as well.

Holistic Evaluation of a FACULTY MEMBER

Note: The information in this section appears in the first column of Table 1 in the prose version of the Guidelines. 

Focus: All assigned workload categories for a given evaluation period.

Evidence:

• Draws on multiple sources of evidence across all workload categories: research/scholarship, teaching*, service, administration, clinicals, etc. 

• Whenever possible, evidence should show impact of one’s efforts, not simply describe the efforts

• Evidence is considered holistically, often with evidence from different categories weighted to mirror one’s workload allocations (I.e., if teaching makes up a substantial majority of one’s workload responsibilities, evidence of teaching effectiveness will weigh more heavily than, say, evidence of service effectiveness.)

* This part of one’s evaluation derives from the work described in the section below on Holistic Evaluation of a Faculty Member's Teaching. 

Goals: Formal evaluations of a faculty member typically are conducted in order to:

• Arrive at a holistic view of all their work as a faculty member 

• Assess the overall quality and impact of their performance in a given evaluation period 

• Determine the extent to which a faculty member’s overall performance meets chair or dean expectations (for annual review) or the academic unit’s promotion expectations (for mid-point review, rank/tenure review)

• [if applicable] Determine a faculty member’s place in a rank-ordered list for merit increase considerations

• Provide feedback on a faculty member’s performance that supports their continued growth and development

Holistic Evaluation of a Faculty Member's TEACHING

Note: The information in this section appears in the first column of Table 1 in the prose version of the Guidelines. 

Focus: All aspects of assigned teaching workload for a given evaluation period

Evidence:

• Draws on multiple sources of evidence, representing different lenses on one’s teaching, across all assigned teaching activities, including course-based teaching and non-course teaching activities. See Appendix A (below) for examples of course-based and non-course teaching activities.

• Whenever possible, evidence should show the effectiveness of one’s habits of practice as a teacher, not simply describe the practices 

• Evidence is considered holistically, often with evidence from different types of teaching activities weighted to mirror one’s teaching responsibilities (I.e., if course-based teaching makes up the majority of one’s assigned teaching workload, course-based evidence will weigh more heavily than, say, evidence of effectiveness at one-on-one mentoring activities.)

Goals: Formal evaluations of a faculty member’s teaching typically are conducted in order to:

• Arrive at a holistic view of their work as a teacher 

• Assess the faculty member’s effectiveness as a teacher and the extent to which they meet teaching-focused performance expectations in a given evaluation period 

• Provide feedback on a faculty member’s teaching that supports their continued growth and development

Note: the results of this evaluation process feeds into the holistic evaluation of the faculty member for a given evaluation period, described in the section above. How we conduct teaching evaluations is the focus of these guidelines. 

As this information makes clear, the holistic evaluation of teaching focuses on teachers (not on courses[3]). And its results should be considered as part of a faculty member’s overall performance/promotion evaluation. Ultimately, the aim of holistic evaluation of teaching is to get as clear a view as possible of the individual as a teacher. This means drawing on different perspectives and types of evidence, gathered across courses and terms, to arrive at a view of the instructor’s individual choices and regular habits of practice as a teacher.

For individual instructors, such an approach to formal evaluation is key to continued growth and development. At an institutional level, adopting a system of holistic evaluation of teaching – one that balances some consistent elements, while leaving ample space for context-specific elements – is essential for ensuring personnel decisions about instructors are fair, equitable, and grounded in appropriate evidence. It also raises the credibility and visibility of effective teaching and helps ensure that all SLU students experience the high-quality teaching we expect to be a hallmark of a SLU education.

[3] While the two are interconnected, it is important to note that evaluation of an instructor’s teaching is not the same as the evaluation of a course (its quality, its overall place in a curriculum, etc.). Particularly in cases where an instructor is assigned to teach a course they have not created, it is not appropriate to conflate these two kinds of review. Course and program evaluation happen at a unit level, not an instructor level, and should be focused on design elements that are the same across sections/instructors.

This section lays out proposed expectations for the holistic evaluation of teaching at SLU. These expectations make explicit some of the practices implied by SLU’s 2018 Policy on End-of-Term Course Feedback Surveys and codify the role of the approved Teaching Effectiveness Framework as a critical foundation for future teaching evaluation efforts.

Key Features of the Proposed System of Evaluation

In practice, the evaluation of teaching will look different in different contexts, depending on the instructor’s appointment type (e.g., full-time faculty, part-time/adjunct faculty, graduate students, staff), the purpose of the evaluation being conducted (e.g., annual review, promotion review), and the cadence of review (e.g., by term, by academic year, over several academic years). The next two sections provide additional information about some of the key ways in which formal evaluation will differ by context.

Minimally, formal evaluation of teaching for all full-time faculty (and for all other instructors, to the extent reasonable) must:

1. Be grounded in SLU’s Teaching Effectiveness Framework.
   For course-based instruction, this likely will include the use of one or more common rubrics (customized at the disciplinary/unit level), addressing the framework’s Essential Practices. This approach balances consistency and disciplinary difference. It also means evaluation will consider multiple dimensions of teaching, since the framework addresses activities that take place before, during, and after courses are taught. For non-course-based teaching activities (such as one-on-one mentoring), academic units must clearly articulate evaluation criteria that are appropriate for their specific workload activities and contexts. The section below on Evaluation Rubrics/Templates provides additional information about how the team is approaching rubric development for course-based instruction. Appendix A provides additional examples of common course-based and non-course-based teaching activities that may be a part of the holistic evaluation of a given faculty member’s teaching.

2. Consider multiple lenses on teaching.
   Formal evaluations should, at a minimum, include three perspectives on teaching: those of the Instructor, their Students, and their Peers. Including multiple lenses on teaching ensures evaluators have a more comprehensive view of one’s teaching. Instructors can speak to their intentions, ground their choices in research, and provide insight into the overall impact of their choices on student learning (including their assessment of student work). Students can share their perceptions of an instructor and course, and they can provide useful insights into how an instructor’s choices are experienced. Peers from the same discipline can help to situate an instructor’s choices in the discipline/field and provide perspective on the instructor’s effectiveness at teaching specific disciplinary concepts and/or material. Considering multiple lenses on teaching helps to provide a more complete view of an instructor’s teaching. This triangulation of multiple perspectives also helps to mitigate the impact (positive or negative) of biases that are present in any single lens or source of evidence. There are many ways to gather different perspectives on teaching, and they may be gathered at different times, with different frequencies. See the next section for more on how these lenses might factor into different kinds of evaluations.

3. Consider multiple forms and types of evidence.
   Formal evaluations of teaching should, at a minimum, include evidence from each of the lenses described above and gathered over multiple courses and terms (unless the instructor only teaches a single course within a given evaluation period). See Appendix B for examples of common forms and types of evidence used in holistic evaluation of teaching. See the next section for more on how different forms and types of evidence might factor into different types of evaluations.

4. Expect and support Instructor growth and development over time.
   While formal evaluations of teaching typically serve summative purposes (i.e., to render a judgment of the quality of one’s teaching for the purposes of personnel decisions), SLU’s holistic system of evaluation also should support formative purposes (i.e., contributing to individual instructors’ growth and development as teachers). Development over time is expected in SLU’s Teaching Effectiveness Framework, and there should always be feedback instructors can learn from as part of any formal evaluation process, even when the primary focus of an evaluation is to form a summative judgment.

So, What Might This Look Like?

Different types of instructors (faculty member, TA, staff member, etc.) will necessarily need somewhat different approaches to evaluation. The next two sections provide clarity on how these different evaluation contexts will be expected to meet the general expectations outlined in above.

For full-time faculty in all ranks and appointment types, teaching evaluation considers both the course-based and non-course-based activities that comprise their workload assignment for a given evaluation period. See Appendix A (below) for examples of course-based and non-course teaching activities. 

Depending on the goals of a given evaluation period, the expectations for evaluative activities will vary. Information below summarizes the ways in which teaching evaluation will differ for annual reviews and for mid-point and/or promotion reviews. Note: in the PDF version of these DRAFT Guidelines, this information appears as Table 2. You can also download it as a print-friendly table here, as well.

Course-Based Teaching Activities

Note: The information in this section appears in the first row of Table 2 in the prose version of the Guidelines. This section addresses things like course design/development, instruction, assessment of student learning, etc. See Appendix A below for more.

Annual Review 

• Considers all courses taught that year

• Focuses on specific dimensions and/or Essential Practices of the Teaching Effectiveness Framework (as agreed-upon in annual goal-setting). Over time, faculty should receive chair/dean feedback on all aspects of the framework.

• Evaluates teaching against specific expectations established by the chair/unit and faculty member for that year, with attention to relevant contextual factors (e.g., number of courses taught, level of courses taught, number of new vs. existing courses taught, etc.)

Mid-Point and/or Promotion Review

• Considers all courses and terms taught during the evaluation period

• Addresses all dimensions and Essential Practices of the Teaching Effectiveness Framework [for mid-point evaluation, formative feedback should indicate areas of improvement/growth needed] 

• Evaluates teaching against specific expectations established by the unit for the given level of promotion, with attention to relevant contextual factors (e.g., number of courses taught, level of courses taught, number of new vs. existing courses taught, etc.)

Non-Course Teaching Activities

Note: The information in this section appears in the second row of Table 2 in the prose version of the Guidelines. This section addresses things like mentoring, advising, program development, etc. See Appendix A below for more.

Annual Review 

• Considers all non-course teaching workload activities for that year

• Evaluates these activities against specific expectations established by the chair/unit and faculty member for that year

Mid-Point and/or Promotion Review

• Considers all non-course teaching workload activities for the evaluation period

• Evaluates these activities against specific expectations established by the unit for the given level of promotion

Holistic Evaluation of Teaching

Note: The information in this section appears in the third row of Table 2 in the prose version of the Guidelines.

Annual Review 

The overall evaluative judgment made by the chair/dean should consider the totality of evidence – across both course-based and non-course teaching activities – for the given year. The goal should be to understand the instructor’s habits of practice and the degree to which they align with expectations. Annual review also should provide formative feedback to guide future growth and development.

Mid-Point and/or Promotion Review

The overall evaluative judgment made by the chair/dean should consider the totality of evidence – across both course-based and non-course teaching activities – for the evaluation period. The goal should be to understand the instructor’s habits of practice, their effectiveness, and the degree to which they align with expectations for promotion. Mid-point and promotion review also should provide formative feedback to guide future growth and development.

Both annual and periodic (mid-point, promotion/tenure) reviews should be grounded in any institution-level rubrics (with unit-level customization) for course-based teaching activities and unit-level rubrics for non-course teaching activities.

For instructors who are not full-time SLU faculty, evaluation will necessarily look somewhat different.

Adjunct/part-time faculty and non-faculty instructors (such as graduate student instructors/TAs [4] and staff members) often have more limited agency in their teaching and/or may teach only one course or teach only infrequently. Other types of instructors – such as those teaching SLU students in off-site clinics or those training SLU students on flight simulators, for example – teach in highly-individualized, highly-specialized learning contexts for which the Essential Practices of the Teaching Effectiveness Framework may not be fully applicable.

In many of these situations, it may not be possible to meet all expectations outlined in above in the section on General Expectations for Teaching Evaluation at SLU. However, chairs/deans should do their best to ensure the following expectations are met, to the extent possible: 

1. The expectations for effective teaching should be clearly articulated. Whenever and wherever possible, those expectations should include relevant items from SLU’s Teaching Effectiveness Framework. In many instances, those expectations also will include criteria articulated by an accrediting body and/or other professional bodies.

2. Non-faculty instructors should receive formative feedback on their teaching, on a regular basis if applicable. For graduate student Teaching Assistants, that should include direct feedback from a faculty supervisor, program director, course coordinator, chair, or dean whenever possible. 

3. In cases where evaluative judgments will inform personnel decisions – for instance, about whether an instructor will be invited to continue teaching at SLU – such judgments should be based on multiple sources of evidence, representing multiple lenses on teaching. Consistent with existing policy, student feedback cannot be the “sole measure” of the instructor’s performance.

Future Teaching Effectiveness Project teams likely will develop additional guidance, to support responsible evaluation of instruction in these and other similar teaching contexts.

[4] It is important to note that these guidelines refer to graduate student instructors/Teaching Assistants who serve as the main course instructor. The guidelines are not appropriate for graduate students who support a faculty member as main course instructor or for other “teaching assistant” like roles, such as undergraduate TAs, undergraduate Learning Assistants, student Peer Mentors, and the like.

At this time, the Phase 2 team expects formal evaluations of teaching will be grounded in the use of one or more rubrics or rubric templates that have some common elements/expectations and some unit-created/unit-customized elements/expectations. The team is experimenting with some alternative ways this might be achieved and plans to share draft rubrics/templates with the community later this spring.

It’s important to note that institution-level rubrics/templates will focus primarily on course-based teaching and will foreground the Essential Practices of the Teaching Effectiveness Framework. While the holistic evaluation of teaching must consider a faculty member’s non-course teaching responsibilities (as articulated in their workload assignments), criteria for that aspect of teaching evaluation will be articulated at the unit level. For a list of examples of course-based and non-course teaching activities, see Appendix A (below).

Academic units will not be expected to develop customized course-focused rubrics entirely on their own. Examples will be shared, and institution-level support will be provided.

Course-Focused Teaching Responsibilities – Customizable Institution-Level Rubrics/Templates

Certain aspects of course-focused instruction can and should be common across all teaching contexts.

At the institutional level, SLU’s approved Teaching Effectiveness Framework already articulates a common set of Essential Practices, which all SLU instructors should strive to enact, in some way, to some degree, across all courses.

The Essential Practices will serve as a foundation for evaluative rubrics/templates and establish high-level common expectations for course-based teaching across all academic units. Each of the Essential Practices may be broken down into more precise descriptions of highly effective practice. However, such descriptions do not necessarily constitute “performance expectations” for a given review period, because performance expectations are – appropriately – highly contextual. For instance, an instructor’s teaching may not yet reflect the “highest-level” version of an Essential Practice, but if the instructor is newer to teaching or teaching all new courses, for instance, their expression of that Essential Practice might, in fact, “meet” (or even “exceed”) the chair/dean’s expectations for a given evaluation period.

Ultimately, academic units will need to customize certain aspects of any institution-level rubric(s) to reflect disciplinary particularities, as well as unit-specific performance expectations. As explained above, units will not be left on their own to do this work, nor will they have to start from scratch.

Non-Course Teaching Responsibilities – Unit-Developed Standards/Rubrics

In addition to course-based teaching responsibilities, faculty have other responsibilities that may be included in their teaching workload. These also must be considered as part of a holistic evaluation of their work as teachers. Depending on the unit, these may include more individualized instruction (such as advising and/or mentoring students), teaching in clinical or practicum settings, curriculum development and management, and more.

Due to the highly-contextualized nature of this work, no single framework or set of evaluation criteria can be applied across academic units. Thus, evaluation criteria for these activities must be articulated within the academic unit, and each unit will be expected to articulate the explicit performance expectations for non-course teaching activities.

Whenever a new system of holistic evaluation of teaching is approved, implementation will unfold gradually over several years. We anticipate a pilot phase, with some departments/colleges working (with examples/templates and facilitation support) to customize institution-level rubrics/templates, followed by other units engaged in the same work, and so on. This iterative process will allow subsequent departments/colleges to learn from one another and to see examples of other units’ customized rubrics.

It is anticipated that even departments not involved in the pilot will continue to work toward integration of multiple lenses in their teaching evaluation. When the team has draft rubrics/templates to share with the community, we will provide additional information about what the pilot phase may entail. In the meantime, we also welcome the community’s suggestions on this topic in their feedback on these DRAFT guidelines. 

This section describes common examples of both course-based and non-course-based teaching workload activities. The lists are not exhaustive.

Common Course-Based Teaching Workload Activities

Note: depending on the course and academic unit, some of the activities listed here may not be entirely within the instructor’s control to change. Additionally, different instructors have different types of assigned course and teaching workload (e.g., number of courses taught, level of courses taught, balance of new vs. existing courses taught, etc.). Thus, the chair/dean should consider all of this context appropriately in their evaluation of teaching for a given instructor.

Consistent with the Teaching Effectiveness Framework, most/all course teaching at SLU involves the following activities (to some extent):

• (Re)Designing and (re)developing courses (new and/or revised over time)

• Designing and implementing instructional activities

• Assessing student learning within their courses, providing feedback to students, etc.

• Engaging with and responding to students enrolled in their courses

• Engaging with feedback on their teaching, identifying changes (if any) to be made in response

• Reflecting on their teaching and the impact of their teaching choices (particularly on student learning and engagement)

• Engaging in professional development on teaching, applying what they learn to their own courses

• Etc.

Common Non-Course Teaching Workload Activities

Note: depending on the academic unit, some/all of the activities listed here may fall under different workload categories – such as service, administration, and/or scholarship. If a faculty member has these activities listed under workload areas other than teaching, they should not be considered as part of a holistic evaluation of teaching.

• Working with students one-on-one in non-course contexts (e.g., mentoring, advising)

• Teaching Independent and/or Directed Study courses (technically “courses” but instruction and design look somewhat different; not all aspects of the Teaching Effectiveness Framework may apply to these contexts cleanly)

• Program/curriculum development

• Program-level assessment

• Scholarship/research on teaching (e.g., SoTL, DBER)

• Etc.

Below are some of the most possible sources of evidence that may be considered as part of a holistic evaluation of teaching. The lists are not exhaustive.

Lens/Perspective: Instructor

• Reflections/Self-Evaluations

  • • Annual self-evaluation/reflection statements

    • Statement of Teaching Philosophy

    • Promotion/tenure dossier or Candidate Statement

    • Post-course reflections

    • …

• Course Materials

  • • Syllabi

    • Canvas course sites/modules

    • Assignments/exams

    • Grading rubrics/criteria

    • Lecture notes/slides

    • Course redesign materials

    • …

• Student Learning Assessment Data

  • • Completed rubrics

    • Course grades (including grades over time)

    • Exam grade trends

    • Instructor summary of student outcomes

    • …

Lens/Perspective: Student

(may be current or past) 

• End-of-Term Course Feedback Surveys (a.k.a., “Blue surveys”)

• Mid-term course feedback surveys/forms

• Mid-term focus group reports (i.e., Reinert Center Small Group Instructional Feedback Sessions)

• Course reflection assignments (during/after a course)

• Alumni surveys

• ….

Lens/Perspective: Peer

(may be internal or external, typically from the same discipline or scholarly area) 

• Review of course materials

• Review of instructor reflections, statements of teaching philosophy

• Review of student or other feedback on teaching

• Class observations

• Review of student artifacts/assessment data

• …