Title: Book Review: Evaluating, Improving, and Judging Faculty Performance in Two-Year Colleges
Abstract: Evaluating, Improving, and Judging Faculty Performance in Two- Year Colleges by Richard I. Miller, Charles Finley, and Candace Shedd Vancko. Bergin & Gravey, Westport, Connecticut. 2000, 181 pages, $55.00 Hardback, ISBN 0-89789-692-0. Reviewed by John P. Murray. It is quite gratifying to find a book devoted specifically to evaluation and improvement of community college teaching. Although an enormous body of literature on faculty evaluation and development exists and much of it is relevant to community colleges, authors correctly note that the literature pertaining to research and teaching evaluation [relies] almost exclusively upon data from four-year (p. ix). Despite applicability of much of this research, diverse mission of comprehensive community college includes institutional dynamics not found in four-year institutions. Community colleges pride themselves on being first and foremost teaching institutions. Moreover, comprehensiveness of their mission coupled with their open-door philosophy means that their diverse offerings include transfer, career, and developmental curricula. It may be unreasonable to apply standards generated from studies of four-year college faculty to evaluation and professional development of community college faculty-especially those teaching in developmental or career programs. Miller, Finely, and Vancko have attempted to provide readers with a comprehensive and book-one that combines research and practice-that also provides useful ideas and approaches whether they be conceptual frameworks, research theories, and practices, or how-to-do-it approaches to improving teaching and learning (p. ix). In this they have succeeded. Miller, Finely, and Vancko provide throughout book and in nine appendices several forms, checklists, how-to-do outlines, and procedures, all potentially useful for community college leaders and faculty interested in developing a comprehensive yet practical faculty evaluation and development plan. The chapters in Miller, Finely, and Vancko's book take us through a logical sequence for conceptualizing, developing, and implementing faculty evaluation and development programs for community colleges. They begin by suggesting how to assess institutional climate for evaluation and development, move to a discussion of how to define good teaching and use this definition to develop a faculty evaluation system, describe how to use data from faculty evaluation to assist faculty to improve, and conclude with a chapter on how to make faculty personnel decisions. Chapter 1, dealing with assessing climate, makes several critical points. First, authors state that While every college has staff evaluation, an evaluation system is much less common. Most often a system is not a system, but a series of parts that are loosely integrated. A 'system' can be defined as a number of components .... that are linked together synergistically so sum is greater than parts. (p 13) The authors follow this definition with promise that components of a system will be discussed in later chapters. Although components are discussed, it is unfortunate that authors do not offer any suggestions on how we might integrate these components into a system. Perhaps this shortcoming is a tacit agreement with quote from Ratcliff on page 26 stating that there is no empirical proof that systematic faculty evaluation contributes to superior teaching. The titles of Chapters 2 and 3, Focus on Teaching and Improving Part-Time Teaching, are somewhat misleading. Although Chapter 2 does emphasize need for a community college to define good teaching in a way that acknowledges differences between academic disciplines, chapter is more focused on principles and components of a faculty evaluation system. A strength of this chapter is authors' acknowledgment that community colleges should do more to encourage faculty to engage in scholarly activities. …
Publication Year: 2000
Publication Date: 2000-10-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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