“Our goal is to help units develop evaluation systems that encompass the full scope of faculty contributions – their activities and achievements in teaching and student success, research and creative activity, and impactful and transformative service and engagement," said Snyder.
Currently, faculty annual evaluation measures differ widely from department to department, which in many cases means that faculty efforts that contribute positively to important outcomes are not acknowledged or valued equally across campus.
“Existing evaluation systems that were developed decades ago fail to document the impact of faculty work and, as our preliminary research has shown, can actually discourage collaboration and transdisciplinary work among faculty,” Snyder said. “For institutions to thrive in this era, new annual evaluation systems should be developed that reward synergy, integration and impact. That is the aspirational outcome of OU Elevate.”
The project team will work with faculty, academic units, faculty governance and OU administrators on developing a comprehensive, reliable and customizable evaluation toolkit that will allow departments to capture and account for all dimensions of faculty work, particularly impactful activities that are difficult to quantify.
“The implementation of this toolkit will provide valid and consistent evaluation metrics, which can then be reliably used to reward and incentivize faculty engagement in impactful work that is aligned with the university’s institutional goals and the OU strategic plan,” Snyder said. “OU Elevate will work closely with all stakeholders in the development, testing and implementation phases to develop a valuable resource for all academic units.
“The work carried out through the OU Elevate project will propel OU into a leadership role at the national level, providing a model that can be adopted by other institutions in revising and reenvisioning faculty evaluation systems,” she added.
In addition to Snyder, the OU Elevate team includes:
- Megan Elwood Madden, Ph.D., the Director of the Center for Faculty Excellence and the Robert & Doris Klabzuba Chair of the School of Geosciences, Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy
- Keri Kornelson, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Mathematics, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences
- Carol Silva, Ph.D., co-director of the Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis and a professor in the Department of Political Science
- Georgia Kosmopoulou, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Economics and the Associate Dean for Research for the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences
- Mashhad Fahes, Ph.D., an associate professor in the School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy
- Amy Cerato, Ph.D., a Rapp Foundation Presidential Professor in the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, Gallogly College of Engineering
- Natalie Youngbull, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education
- Sarah Ellis, Ph.D., Vice Provost for Faculty, the Associate Second Century Presidential Professor of Music Theory, School of Music, Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts
