Academic evaluations
This morning, I received an email alerting me to the upcoming existence of an evaluation survey. Here’s the pertinent piece of the email:
The [Local faculty-staff-admin deliberative body] has been working with Human Resources to develop a method for regularly and consistently providing input regarding the overall efficiency and effectiveness of key Academic leaders…
I know quite a few of the people on the deliberative body, and I know they have good intentions. Yet, I doubt they recognize the futility of their effort. I believe this falls under the heading of “Providing the Appearance of Shared Governance”. TL/DR; There is no way that any “key academic leader” is going to be evaluated (with jeopardy) by people who are lower on the org chart.
At the risk of flying off into a boring anecdote, the apparent limit of shared governance is that faculty and staff have a chance to actually determine (or even contribute to) the course of action taken by the University on a given initiative. The actual limit of shared governance is a lot closer to organizational unit (i.e. department, or center, or office).
Yet, sometimes it behooves the administration to make it “look like” the plebes can touch the tiller.
To quote my sometimes exasperated friend Tom, “Let me put it this way”, When the results of a survey agree with what admin already had in mind to do, it’s often good form to give credit to the grassroots. For example, when there is a national instance of gratuitous violence targeted at minority groups, admin may release a statement like “The campus community is drawing together to resist the culture that spreads this violence.” Because it is clear that nobody on the campus supports the gratuitous violence.
When admin has no intention of allowing external input, then none is offered or allowed. For example, when the University budget needs to be slashed, admin may release a statement like “My team has taken as many cost-saving measures as possible to avoid more drastic cuts to our operating budget. To address the remaining XX thousand dollars of the shortfall, we will be …” Because allowing the “rabble” to determine where to make budgetary cuts would require admin to give information about where money is actually spent. That’s a can of worms that can never be opened. Sorry.
Anyway, back to the thread: The surveys will not have “consequences” for the “key admin” folks. These surveys will have value only to bolster any existing positive outcomes. Any negative outcomes can be easily scrubbed away by making the claim that “the survey respondents do not understand my job, nor the decision-making involved in determining the pathways that are taken to complete the assignment.”
Let me take a key sentence above and try to make clearer what it means to the admin folks whose job is being evaluated by the survey: “a method for regularly and consistently providing input regarding the overall efficiency and effectiveness of key Academic leaders”
Here’s another way to put it: “The results of this annual survey will be available to key academic leaders so they are aware of what the Academic Community understands about their position and its responsibilities.” Pointedly, NOT “This results of this survey will be used during the leaders’ periodic employment review as evidence of position qualification, and will guide the University in making its decision about retention.”