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Craven Community College requires new adjunct faculty to attend a formal college orientation prior to Fall semester, at which instructional procedures and expectations are explained. In addition, a speaker is provided to address particular concepts critical to student learning.
New adjunct faculty teaching courses in the distance education environment are required to take the course "Developing and Enhancing Online Teaching" prior to or during delivery of their first distance course. The course is reviewed and monitored by a faculty member with reassigned course time for oversight of distance education curricula. Difficulties, student concerns, quality issues are reported to the Dean/Chair/Director of that discipline.
Department Chairs have direct responsibility to recruit, hire, orient, counsel with and evaluate performance of adjunct faculty. They currently use the following methods to evaluate adjunct faculty's effectiveness:
- Student Opinion of Instruction: The Office of Instructional Administration administers this survey to students each Fall and Spring Semester, and summarizes results for Chairs/Directors prior to end of the semester, and with adjunct faculty after final grades are turned in.
- Student/Faculty/Staff concerns brought to attention of faculty/staff/chair: Students are encouraged to communicate directly with the faculty with whom a problem exists, but often, the student raises his/her concerns to other faculty/staff. Each concern is addressed directly by the Chair/Dean (student grievance form/process), who speaks directly to the adjunct faculty. Faculty teaching subsequent courses often gain insight to the amount/type of learning achieved in particular instructor's courses, and communicate with the Chair/Director.
In some program areas, such as criminal justice, formal adjunct evaluation processes are in place in accordance with licensing agencies and board requirements.
Further, Chairs/Directors regularly review other information such as student retention in courses, student success in subsequent coursework, and grades assigned. These data provide additional information relevant to a faculty member's effectiveness.
Craven completely revamped its fulltime employee appraisal system in Spring of 2005, and implemented it for the first time during the academic year 2005-06. The college will implement an Observation component for adjunct faculty beginning Fall 2006.
Chairs/Directors will begin in Fall 2006 to formally observe adjunct faculty, using either the Clinical, Lab, Distance, or Classroom Observation Checklist, with follow-up conversations as needed. Chairs/Directors will observe at least ten adjuncts per semester for Fall 2006 and Spring 2007; all adjunct faculty will have been formally evaluated using both the Student Opinion of Instruction and the Observation Checklist by June 2007. Records of adjunct appraisals will be kept on file with the Division Dean and Human Resources Office and shared by Chairs/Directors with faculty after each semester has ended.
The following statement describing the process is located in the 2006-07 Adjunct Faculty Handbook on page 23:
Adjunct Faculty Appraisal
The appraisal process is intended to promote improvement, ensure fairness, and establish open lines of communication. The ultimate goal in an appraisal process is the overall improvement of individual performance and, thereby, the college's performance in meeting the learning needs of its community.
Two formal tools are used to directly assess the adjunct faculty member's effectiveness: the Student Opinion of Instruction and the Supervisor Observation.
The Student Opinion of Instruction is administered each Fall and Spring semester. This tool is designed to assess an instructor's effectiveness from the students' point of view.
Division Chairs/Program Directors will observe Adjunct Faculty during the Adjunct's first semester of employment with the college using the Observation Checklist (pages 5-9) appropriate to the delivery mode of the course, whether it be a lab, distance, clinical, or classroom environment. The observation may be announced or unannounced, and will evaluate the extent to which expected behaviors are present during the observation. Subsequent formal observation will occur when warranted, and at least every fourth semester the Adjunct Faculty teaches for the college.
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