Note: The following policy also applies to those tenure track faculty who began work in the 2020-2021 academic year.

Dear Colleagues,

COVID-19 has affected many aspects of our professional lives, and faculty are understandably concerned about the effects this global disruption may have on their ability to build the dossiers that will be reviewed by the Committee on Personnel (COP). The COP understands that scholarly or creative projects may be on hold, and that an ability to build evidence of teaching for the Winter 2020 semester and Short Term 2020 may be curtailed. Due to the unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 situation, the COP convened to discuss the question of schedules of review. The consensus of the group, with support from the dean of faculty and president, was to allow faculty the option of extending their tenure clock by one year if they so desire. The COP agreed that any decision to delay would have no bearing on the review – indeed, all colleagues understood the extraordinary historical moment we find ourselves in. The COP was also in agreement that this delay did not signal any expectation of additional work. The option to delay is meant to be a clear statement of support for colleagues who might have had their professional planning disrupted by COVID-19. It is important to emphasize that there is no expectation that individuals choose to delay their scheduled reviews. There is also no consequence to accepting a delay of the scheduled review.

Sincerely,
Malcolm Hill
Dean of the Faculty

Policy

Modification to the schedule of personnel reviews due to the COVID-19 disruption.

1. All pre-tenure faculty who began teaching in 2019-20 or before will have the option to choose to extend their tenure clocks by one year if they so desire. For candidates scheduled to come up for tenure review next fall, the deadline to decide whether or not to stand for review in academic year 20-21 will be April 20, 2020. In subsequent years, assistant professors who began their contracts before September, 2019 would need to make a decision whether or not to delay the tenure decision by March 15th of the year of their scheduled review. For faculty on the tenure track, the reappointment decision will remain on the same schedule.
2. All lecturers on renewable contracts under review from 2021-23 should meet with the dean of faculty to discuss potential modifications to their schedule of review if they so desire.
3. Any associate professor who anticipates coming up for promotion to full professor is welcome to contact the dean of faculty to discuss their individual schedule of review.
4. To give time for in-class visits, we have extended the submission deadline to September 30^th for internal colleague letters for promotion and lecturer cases.

Dear colleagues,

As the faculty members of the Committee on Personnel, we seek to assure you that we recognize how the current public health circumstances have affected our personal and professional lives. To that end, we draw your attention to the committee’s statement below, which will also be published on the college’s COVID-19 web page:

The Committee on Personnel (COP) acknowledges that COVID-19 has complicated our professional lives in a variety of ways. We recognize that the impact of COVID-19 will reverberate in the years ahead, delaying and shifting how we do our work in a manner we cannot imagine fully yet. In this unique moment, we remind you that reappointment, tenure, and promotion criteria at Bates have always allowed for myriad approaches to demonstrating excellence in teaching and significant professional achievement, and included a prospective judgment about promise for further development, rather than a specific number of publications, books, or other output. We respect the full range of contributions faculty members make, including the effort and creativity required in adjusting to this very complicated time.

Sincerely,
John Baughman, Associate Professor of Politics
Carol Dilley, Professor of Dance
Steven Dillon, Professor of English
Stephen Engel, Professor of Politics
Emily Kane, Professor of Sociology
Jennifer Koviach-Côté, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Peter Wong, Professor of Mathematics

Dear Colleagues,

I write with greater detail about two faculty policies involving instruction next year that may be of particular interest. The first deals with remote/in-person instruction options for faculty given that we are planning to have students residing on campus in the fall. The second focuses on plans for evaluation of instruction next year.

Remote / In-Person Instruction Options

Faculty have raised important questions about the conditions for teaching next year. We are working hard to protect the in-person experience in a way that prioritizes and protects the health of faculty, staff, and students in a manner consistent with the best guidance available from public health experts. Teaching under these circumstances will inevitably be altered, but we are confident that, with appropriate adaptations, we can preserve the most important aspects of the on-campus academic experience for our students.

We very much hope that most faculty will choose to teach some portion or all of their course in-person next year, because it is important to offer an experience that makes sense for our students who have chosen to live and learn on campus. That said, we understand that certain faculty have personal or family concerns that may make it difficult or unwise for them to teach in person. Thus, as is explained in the faculty FAQ, faculty will have the choice to select in-person teaching or total remote instruction, and we will not ask for reasons or documentation concerning your decision to teach an entirely remote course.

As we heard at recent town halls, we are operationalizing plans to create a robust testing routine, contact tracing policies, classroom de-densification strategies, social distancing guidelines, face masking on campus and in classes, updated cleaning protocols, and travel policies restricting movement from and to campus. We realize these may influence your decision about mode of teaching. For those faculty who are unsure of the steps they plan to take, I would welcome a conversation to learn about conditions that would help you feel comfortable returning to the classroom with students. Lori Ouellette will help set up meetings with any faculty interested in such a conversation.

We must identify the mode of instruction for all courses so that students can make informed decisions and select courses that match their preferences about instructional mode. For this reason, I have been working with the Registrar, the Academic Affairs Council, and the Curriculum Review Committee to develop a plan for identifying the courses you will teach entirely remotely or in an in-person mode. That information should be available this week. We know that students have indicated a strong preference for in-person instruction, and we will work with the Registrar to manage any enrollment shifts that may arise in the coming weeks as students learn which courses will be offered in which modalities. 

Evaluation of Instruction

Several faculty members have expressed concerns about teaching evaluations in the coming year. I have had several conversations with the Committee on Personnel on this topic. We recognize that the modular structure and possibility of remote instruction complicates our normal practices and raises questions about longitudinal interpretation of student evaluations. While we will continue to allow students to complete course evaluations, and these will be available for your review should you desire, the Committee on Personnel will not review student evaluations generated from courses taught during the 2020-21 academic year.  

We are also developing guidelines for faculty who are responsible for conducting evaluations of their colleagues next year. Classroom visits may present challenges in the coming academic year so we should rely on other important pedagogical evidence during colleague evaluations (e.g., syllabi, additional course materials, engaged learning objectives). As per our handbook (Article II, Section 6a&b; Article IV, Section 5d), peer evaluation of instruction can and should consider many aspects of a colleague’s teaching portfolio. We plan to distribute guidelines to all evaluators before the beginning of the academic year. We will also work with the Committee of Teaching and Learning to identify methods that will allow us to gain valuable lessons about the efforts of our faculty this year as we assess remote instruction.

We are very grateful for how faculty have engaged with us and our students as we continue to respond to this ongoing crisis. Faculty have been incredibly responsive. Faculty voted overwhelmingly for the modular approach, and are currently working with the Registrar and the CRC to figure out logical grids for the fall. Most of our faculty have attended pedagogical training sessions. You continue to contribute to our shared work and key decisions. The reality is that we may need additional flexibility as our contingency plans continue to evolve in an ever-changing public health landscape. We recognize this involves tremendous effort and time, and we know the vital role you play in defining Bates’ key strengths. I want to thank everyone for their hard work and patience as we attempt to plan for a frustratingly uncertain future.

All the best,
Malcolm

The Committee on Personnel recognizes that the impact of COVID-19 will reverberate in the years ahead, delaying and shifting how we do our work in a manner we cannot imagine fully yet.

As we acknowledged in our May 2020 statement, COVID-19 has complicated our professional lives in a variety of ways:

“In this unique moment, we remind you that reappointment, tenure, and promotion criteria at Bates have always allowed for myriad approaches to demonstrating excellence in teaching and significant professional achievement, and included a prospective judgment about promise for further development, rather than a specific number of publications, books, or other output. We respect the full range of contributions faculty members make, including the effort and creativity required in adjusting to this very complicated time.” 

In this spirit, we remind members of the faculty that the committee will take the unique and ongoing constraints of this time into consideration. In the various statements candidates submit as part of their dossiers, we welcome explicit comments they may wish to offer about the impact of this pandemic on their teaching, professional achievement, and service in order to provide context for the committee. 

Student and Colleague Evaluation of Teaching:

In a June 30th statement, the Dean of the Faculty noted that the formal student evaluations of teaching would be optional only for the coming year, at the discretion of the candidate (details available at this link). He also noted that the Committee on Personnel would develop guidelines for faculty responsible for conducting evaluations of their colleagues during the 2020-21 academic year. The committee now offers the following guidelines for colleague evaluations. We offer these in the spirit of recognizing what a challenging year this will be.

Given the many constraints we all face, whether we elected to teach remotely, in-person, or in a mixed format, and given the uncertainties in the months ahead, we discourage in-person classroom visits by colleague evaluators. Our faculty handbook recognizes a variety of sources of evidence colleagues can use in the evaluation of teaching, and we suggest a focus on the following evidence types specified in Article IV, Section 5 of the Faculty Handbook: syllabi, examinations, or other course materials; observation outside of the classroom concerning such qualities as rapport with and accessibility to students; and responsibility in meeting obligations. In addition, a personal discussion with the candidate can be useful, though the evaluator should take care to ensure a collegial and supportive discussion. Course materials shared by candidates will be especially helpful in this assessment, as evidence of the kind of effort and creativity required in adjusting pedagogy.  

The complexities of remote teaching are new to most of us, and therefore we also suggest that remote visits or sharing recorded class material not be required.  If a candidate wishes to share recordings or invite a virtual visit, then colleagues can consider those opportunities as additional evidence. We also wish to remind colleague evaluators that each Bates faculty member was given a choice about which modes of instruction were most appropriate for them, and evaluators should not make any judgments on the basis of which mode(s) a candidate chose.

In this unprecedented year, classes will take every form imaginable, and committed teachers will adapt with flexibility, resourcefulness, and generosity.  We trust that colleague evaluators writing letters will also cultivate these qualities in their approach to the evaluation of teaching. 

Carol Dilley, Professor of Dance
Steven Dillon, Professor of English
Emily Kane, Professor of Sociology
Jennifer Koviach-Côté, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
James Richter, Professor of Politics
Daniel Riera-Crichton, Associate Professor of Economics
Peter Wong, Professor of Mathematics