Annual Performance Review

Faculty and instructional P&A staff process

University policy requires a yearly written performance review for all employees. The performance review period is January-December 31 of the prior year and includes a face-to-face meeting with Chair or your program coordinator.

Review Timeline (timeline overview from 2023):

• December: Department notifies Faculty/P&A that the performance review period has opened

• Mid-Late January: Deadline for submitting the required materials (see below)

• February: Materials will be shared with supervisor and Annual Review Committee members (when relevant) to evaluate performance and provide recommendations

• March - April: Supervisor drafts the Annual Appraisal Form, meets with individual employees, and finalizes all appraisals.

• April: Chair reports aggregate performance data to the department

• May: Merit allocations are determined

Required Materials

For the 2025 review cycle, all materials should be submitted using our online survey. An individualized link will be emailed to each employee to facilitate tracking of responses and reminders. If needed, the anonymous link to the survey may be accessed here and used to submit materials.

Submission of all materials for the 2025 review cycle is requested by January 16th, 2026

Getting ready to report your activities and submit your materials:

1. In preparation for completing the online survey, each of you, regardless of job family (i.e., instructional P&A, contract faculty, or tenure track/tenured faculty) will need to have the following documents readily available:

   • Updated CV that includes your professional activities from the previous calendar year. Any activities that should be considered for the year of the review should be highlighted. You will upload this document to the online survey as part of submitting your materials.

   • Student Rating of Teaching Report Downloaded from Works. This is an automatically generated report from Works. Directions for retrieving this report are available here. After logging into Works, from the Rapid Report menu, select “Student Rating of Teaching Report”, select the year of review, run the report and save it to your computer. You will upload this document to the online survey as part of submitting your materials. (NOTE: Contract Research Faculty only need this report if they were an instructor of record during the year in review)

2. Login to the online survey using the link you received in your email. If helpful, a PDF of the review document you will complete is available here for instructional P&A, contract faculty, and tenure track/tenured faculty. You should provide responses and upload documents through the online survey using the link that you received. The link is unique to you, so you can start and stop as needed while working to submit your materials.

3. One goal with this updated process is to reduce the effort required to report your activities. You DO NOT need to provide additional narrative explanations or examples unless you want to. In most cases, your CV and teaching report should provide needed details. In some cases, providing a brief example may be helpful (e.g., created 6 new videos for a class).

4. Within research, teaching, and service, there are three categories of criteria that are intended to aid in establishing performance expectations. The criteria are robust, but may not be exhaustive. You will have an opportunity to add additional activities that you believe should be represented within a specific category. You will also have an opportunity to self-reflect on the category that best represents your performance for the year of review.

5. Due to the evolving responsibilities of employees over time (e.g., leadership roles, externally funded buyouts, advising or curricular needs of a program), responsibilities may shift in ways that differ from the expected FTE breakdown based on your job type and/or position description. You will have an opportunity in the survey to include a breakdown of your FTE this year. Please also indicate how deviations from what is outlined in your contract were important to supporting your program or department and if deviations are expected to continue. For employees with less than 100% FTE in EPSY, individual workload plans should be used to guide the performance review. Further, how decisions about merit and who is responsible for decisions about merit may differ for faculty with FTE outside of EPSY.

6. Submit the online survey with uploaded documents by the deadline. You will see a copy of your responses after you submit the survey that you may download and keep for your own records.

7. The review committee and supervisors will examine responses to the online survey, self-reflections on categories of performance, and submitted documents to provide recommendations for feedback and final characterization of performance for the year of review.

Roles and Responsibilities of Supervisors and the Annual Review Committees

Though P&A employees are reviewed by their supervisor, tenure track/tenured and contract faculty are reviewed by a committee before meeting with the chair. Each year, two different annual review committees are established, one that reviews tenure track/tenured faculty and one that reviews contract faculty. The work of the committee is advisory to the chair to support consistency in performance feedback aligned with expectations described in the self-reflection materials. Each committee will be responsible for the following:

1. Independently review and characterize faculty performance based on submitted materials in advance of the committee meeting.

2. Meet as a committee with the chair to try to achieve consensus on ratings and suggest specific points of feedback for individual faculty members.

3. Provide guidance to the chair that differentiates faculty performance in ways that are informative to merit pay decisions that will be made by the chair in consultation with the dean.

For supervisors of instructional P&A employees, often the program area coordinator, the supervisor will be responsible for the following:

1. Independenty review and characterize the employee's submitted materials.

2. Use the submitted materials to complete the Annual Appraisal Form that will be discussed with the employee.

3. Provide guidance to the chair that differentiates employee performance in ways that are informative to merit pay decisions that will be made by the chair in consultation with the dean.

Historical Merit Review Committee and Process document

How Merit Pay May be Determined in a Specific Year

Supervisors and the annual review committees will provide information that helps to differentiate faculty performance, but the chair holds ultimate responsibility for finalizing merit pay decisions in consultation with the CEHD Dean. The annual performance and merit review process encompasses standards for teaching, research, and service related activities in alignment with an individual’s type of faculty role (i.e., tenure line or contract) and position description as well as expectations for professional conduct and behavior. Decisions regarding the quantity of any merit related increase are intended to be commensurate with performance expectations and faculty conduct. Those individuals who meet and/or exceed performance expectations may receive merit commensurate with those achievements and those meeting minimal expectations or violations of expectations for faculty behavior may receive less merit or have merit pay withheld. Specifically:

• For individuals who achieve only minimum performance expectations in a given year, merit pay may not be awarded in that year.

• For individuals who achieve only minimum performance expectations across multiple years, in addition to not receiving merit pay, additional types of reviews may be expected (e.g., post-tenure review, graduate faculty status review).

• For individuals who are the subject of substantiated concerns related to the University Code of Conduct or recommendations by the Provost’s Task Force on Faculty Behavior in Graduate Education in a given year, merit pay may not be awarded in that year and may continue to be withheld until the concern is resolved.

As part of our commitment to a fair, transparent, and equitable merit process, the guiding principles described below will shape how merit pay is allocated each year. These principles also explain why, in some years, we may use percentage-based increases, flat-dollar increases, or a hybrid approach.

1. Merit differences must be meaningful for high performers. Our merit system is designed to recognize substantial contributions in teaching, research/creative work, service, and engagement. Evidence from higher education compensation research indicates that merit systems only function as intended when the differences awarded to strong performers are significant enough to matter. Implication: We may use percentage-based increases or tiered amounts to ensure top performers receive clearly distinguishable raises.

2. Merit decisions should reduce—not widen—pay inequities and compression. Universities and HR organizations (e.g., CUPA-HR) recommend using salary adjustments to improve pay equity across rank, gender, race/ethnicity, and years in rank while also addressing compression. Implication: When equity or compression issues are priorities, flat-dollar increases may be used so that lower-paid faculty gain more ground relative to peers.

3. Merit raises should support departmental morale and recognize baseline contributions. Guidance for department chairs stresses that merit systems must accurately reflect high and low performance while maintaining cohesion and trust. Implication: Faculty who meet expectations will typically receive a baseline merit increase, while faculty who exceed expectations will receive additional merit. Faculty with unsatisfactory performance may receive reduced or no increase.

4. Processes and criteria must be transparent, consistent, and rooted in shared expectations. Professional standards (AAUP; university compensation guidelines) emphasize that faculty should understand how evaluations translate into merit outcomes. Implication: Each year, the chair will announce the approach being used (percentage, flat-dollar, or hybrid) before the merit review process concludes. The chair will share performance data in aggregate with the department along with an explanation of the approach adopted for allocating merit pay for that year.

Summary: When we use percentage vs. flat-dollar approaches

• Percentage-based increases are most appropriate when differentiating high performers and when salary structures are already near equity benchmarks.

• Flat-dollar increases are most appropriate when addressing equity or compression or when the available merit pool is small.

• Hybrid approaches allow us to provide baseline recognition to all who meet expectations and additional scaling awards for top performers.

Additional Resources

• Standard CV template available for use through the Provost's Office. 

• Peer Review of Teaching information is available, including teaching observation forms. 

• For additional guidance on considerations for contextualizing performance: Questions to Consider Regarding Impact for Annual Performance Review

If you have any questions regarding the review process, please contact Rochelle Hammer, department administrator

Additional resources on the CEHD annual review process are available on the CEHD Sky Annual Reviews page.