Highest Priority to Hire

On Highest Priority to Hire by Philip J. Owens

The newly-instituted method for assigning adjunct faculty to courses appears to be an attempt to:

To address the issue of quality of teaching, a "Highest Priority to Hire" (HTPH) teacher-evaluation policy has been made an optional component of this process. Unfortunately, if that option is not chosen, quality of teaching apparently plays no role in the selection of adjunct faculty.

If teaching quality is to play a role, how can this be done, and how does HPTH measure up?

Who should have priority?
A key issue in teacher evaluation is the selection of the criteria to be used for evaluation. We should note that we as teachers evaluate students all the time. These evaluations are based on the quality of their work, and not on how popular they are with other students or how long they have been in attendance at ACC. Similarly, we as teachers need to be judged on the basis of the quality of our work. What is best for the students should be foremost in our minds as we decide who should teach them.

Certainly, any organization needs to take into consideration the needs and wishes of its employees, but when we compromise the quality of teaching in order to resolve a personnel issue, we do a disservice to our institution and to our students.

HTPH as a concept
I believe that just two levels of evaluation (HTPH and not HTPH) is inadequate. Teachers should be rated on a continuous scale or (at least) placed in one of several categories of effectiveness. Just as students are not usually rated "Pass/Fail", teachers should not be, either. As much as possible, teachers should be assigned starting with those with highest rating, then proceeding downward. A refinement to this would be to rate teachers on each course that they teach, and make assignments on a by-course basis.

How should ratings be constructed?
This process should be as objective as possible, to eliminate charges of "politics" or favoritism. When a subjective component needs to be assessed, its value should be decided upon collaboratively, to reduce the possibility of charges of unfairness.

What should go into a rating?
There are are number of indices that point to how "good" a teacher is. Among these are:

Student evaluations. Both the numerical scores and written comments should be taken into consideration.
Teacher-constructed syllabi and course material handouts.
Attendance and/or participation at conferences
Participation in professional organizations
Peer review by way of classroom visits
Publications
Departmental participation

Should a teacher know his/her rating?
Absolutely. The various sub-scores should be reported, and department-wide means and ranges should be provided, as well, so that a teacher may correct an incorrect evaluation, or move to improve his/her ratings.

There are, of course, lots of details that need to be supplied to turn the above into a workable plan. Its implementation also implies a burden of cost and administrative work. But what is the alternative? Either no consideration given to teaching quality, or a hit-or-miss approach that will cause more problems than it solves.