Flex Credit for Adjunct Faculty Evaluations
As full-time faculty numbers have shrunk in recent years, the workload involved in completing adjunct faculty evaluations in some departments and programs has spun out of control. In some cases, one or two FT faculty face dozens of evaluations each year. To assist departments that find themselves in such a crunch, the District Tenure Review and Evaluations Committee (DTREC) proposed that it solicit faculty members from outside the overburdened department to serve as Faculty Peers for adjunct evaluations, and that these faculty members receive three hours of FLEX credit for their service on each evaluation.
The following recommendation was approved by DTREC and approved and accepted by Vice President of Academic Affairs Mary Kay Rudolph:
DTREC recognizes that certain departments are unable to complete in a timely manner the required number of adjunct faculty evaluations due each semester despite their best efforts or intentions.
DTREC recommends a two-year pilot project be undertaken, ending at the conclusion of the spring 2015 semester. During the last semester of the pilot project, DTREC will evaluate the program and make a recommendation on whether or not the pilot project should be modified, continued or incorporated into the AFA contract.
DTREC, therefore, recommends that where a department determines that it will be unable to complete some or all of its adjunct faculty evaluations for an upcoming semester, the department petition DTREC and request DTREC to determine if there is sufficient and adequate cause for District assistance to be recommended.
DTREC also recommends that DTREC hear such petitions on a semester-by-semester basis; and if a determination is made that a department is in need of assistance to complete adjunct faculty evaluations in a timely manner for that semester; DTREC may recommend that regular faculty members be solicited by one or the other of the co-chairs of DTREC to serve as the Faculty Peer on an evaluation team for which the regular faculty member will receive compensation by being granted three (3) hours of staff development (FLEX) time.