Results of OSU/AAUP’s Faculty Evaluation of Administration (FEA) for 2001: Final Report

In 2001 OSU/AAUP distributed the second Faculty Evaluation of Administration (FEA). As in the previous year, the questionnaire allowed faculty members to evaluate their deans and central administrators, including the President of the university. We added an evaluation of chairpeople to this year’s survey. The results of the evaluations of chairmen and chairwomen will appear in a later edition of this newsletter.

Some members of the administration have not taken kindly to our FEA. We heard that last year the Provost instructed his deans to ignore the outcome of our evaluation. We believe that a more prudent response would have been to inform the deans to consider the results of our survey, but to do so critically and judiciously. Clearly, when there are impressive numbers of people responding with low evaluations of administrators, including deans, there is a need for at least further inquiry and action. To ignore such information represents a blatant insensitivity to potentially meaningful faculty input, and such behaviors cannot improve the quality of our administration.

It is important to note that the purpose of this evaluation is not to be negative or destructive. Instead our goal is to express the voice of the faculty so that we have a critical role in the governance of this great institution and so that we can improve its functioning. Such input is sorely lacking. Currently only two upper level administrators receive evaluations from committees that include regular faculty members each year.

Moreover, there exists absolutely no systematic evaluation of deans by the faculty, a fact that will undoubtedly become increasingly significant when the new fiscal system takes effect, since that system gives deans extraordinary powers in disbursing funds for raises. As one person indicated to us in an e-mail, in regard to the deans, ’There is an issue at hand with Senate or faculty governance at the college level, with no known oversight committee at the college (dean) level, selected by faculty and no known Senate body with investigatory powers at the college level. Although the central administration must report to elected faculty, it is not clear that college administrators (i.e., deans) have such an obligation (original statement paraphrased).’

Before describing the results, we should mention some caveats. Results of the questionnaire do not come from a random, unbiased sampling of faculty. Rather the questionnaire was circulated to the entire faculty, and only a portion of the faculty responded. We do not know what differentiates responders from non-responders. Furthermore in evaluating deans we arbitrarily decided to consider any college in which the number of respondents was 5 or more. Results from low numbers of respondents must obviously be treated with caution, especially if there are large numbers of non-respondents. (Some colleges with a low number of respondents have relatively few faculty members.). Well over 500 questionnaires were returned, a meaningful increase over last year’s response rate, and we summarize the results of the evaluations of deans and central administrators in this article.

Table 1

Mean Ratings for Deans, 2001

Item

Note: For the first two ratings, 3 = high; 2 = moderate; 1 = low; for the next four ratings, 5 = strongly agree; 4 = agree; 3 = undecided; 2 = disagree; 1 = strongly disagree. For overall grade, 4 = A; 3 = B; 2 = C; 1 = D; 0 = E. The number in parentheses is the smallest number of responses to any of the seven items.

Tables 1 and 2 present the average scores for the deans and central administrators, respectively. As is indicated in the footnote of each table, there are different ranges for various questions. Thus for the first two questions (columns) in each table (Familiarity with the Dean or Administrator’s Performance, and Scholarly Credibility of the Dean or Administrator) scores ranged from 1 (low) to 3 (high). The next four questions (Embraces Broad Conception of Scholarly and Creative Activity; Involves Faculty Centrally in Making Major Decisions; Leads in the Right Direction; and Is Responsive to Basic Faculty Concerns) allowed responses that ranged from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).

The last column presents results for the question asking for an overall evaluation (“Overall I would rate this administrator as:”), with responses ranging from A (superior) to E (failure). In statistically analyzing the results for this question, we assigned numerical scores to the letter scores, using the same system the university does in assigning numerical scores to letter grades: 4 = A; 3.7 = A-; 3.3 = B+; 3.0 = B; 2.7 = B-; 2.3 = C+; 2.0 = C; 1.7 = C-; 1.3 = D+; and 1. 0 = D.

Table 2

Mean Ratings for Administrators, 2001

            Item

Note: For the first two ratings, 3 = high; 2 = moderate; 1 = low; for the next four ratings, 5 = strongly agree; 4 = agree; 3 = undecided; 2 = disagree; 1 = strongly disagree. For overall grade, 4 = A; 3 = B; 2 = C; 1 = D; 0 = E. The number in parentheses is the smallest number of responses to any of the seven items.

The following comments focus on the overall evaluation that a dean or central administrator received, that is, the score in the last column in each of Tables 1 and 2. Some might object to our focusing on this single score. However, the careful reader will see that if we add a 1 to the overall score in the last column, in order to put it on the same scale as the scores in the immediately preceding columns, the score appearing in the last column is often the highest of those scores; that is, the overall score is typically as positive or more positive than comparable scores in the immediately preceding columns.

Table 3

Relative Positions of College Deans on Overall Rating, 2001

Table 3 reveals that only one dean fell the A range: Optometry. A second college dean fell between a B+ and an A-: Nursing.

The deans in four colleges received overall B grades: (1) Food, Agriculture and Environment Science; (2) Library; (3) Social Work; and (4) Medicine.

Deans in five colleges received overall C+ to B- grades: (1) Human Ecology; (2) Business; (3) Veterinary Medicine; (4) MAPS; and (5) Humanities.

The dean in one college, Engineering, was in the low average (C- to C) range.

Finally, and most troubling, deans in five colleges had an overall score of D or D+: (1) Biological Sciences; (2) Education; (3) Social and Behavioral Sciences; (4) Dentistry; and (5) Arts. Deans in the colleges of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Arts are repeats in this low category. Biological Sciences, Education and Dentistry are newcomers.

There are new deans in the Colleges of Dentistry and the Arts, and the current results do not reflect evaluations of their performance but rather evaluations of their predecessors. However, the low evaluations of the dean of the College of Education refer to the new and current dean, and they are troubling. Also troubling is the decline in Biological Sciences. Finally, we are chagrined that there was not a substantial improvement in the ratings of the dean in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. There were no other notable trends except for the dean of the College of the Humanities slipping from within the B range last year (not shown) to the C range this year.

There were a total of 481 people who rated their college dean. The mean overall rating was 2.1, indicating that the typical dean was given a “C” grade by his or her faculty. The averages for the President and central administrators appear in Table 3. The same metrics apply. Again, focusing on the scores in the last column, the administrators generally received average ratings. In fact, only two administrators were rated as above average: Susan Huntington, Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School, and Daniel Farrell, who at the time of the survey was heading the honors program. While most scores of the central administrators are fairly similar to those of last year, overall there were some slight declines, probably attributable to the dire fiscal situation that we face and the poor raises that we are receiving.

In addition to ratings of deans and central administrators, we included an opportunity for faculty to rate their department chair or school director. There were 25 departments/schools where a minimum of 5 faculty rated the chair/director on all seven rating scales, as Table 4 shows. As we pointed out earlier, there are different ranges for various questions (which is described in the footnote for this table as well), and the ratings should be interpreted in the same way as for Tables 1 and 2.

Table 4

Mean Ratings for Department Chairs/School Directors, 2001

Item

Note: For the first two ratings, 3 = high; 2 = moderate; 1 = low; for the next four ratings, 5 = strongly agree; 4 = agree; 3 = undecided; 2 = disagree; 1 = strongly disagree. For overall grade, 4 = A; 3 = B; 2 = C; 1 = D; 0 = E. The number in parentheses is the smallest number of responses to any of the seven items.

The following comments focus on the overall evaluation that a chair or director received, that is, the score in the last column in Table 4.

Table 5

Relative Positions of Department Chairs/School Directors on Overall Rating, 2001

As Table 5 reveals that, while no chair/director fell in the A range, two did fall in the A- range: Entomology and Statistics.

Six chairs/directors fell in the B+ range: History, Political Science, Teaching & Learning, Ag Tech Institute, East Asian Languages and Literatures, and Natural Resources. In addition, two fell in the B range: English and OSU Extension.

There were four others who achieved a B- rating: Music, Vet Clinical Science, Phys Activity and Educational Services.

Four fell in the C+ range: Edu Policy & Leadership, Theatre, Mathematics, and Internal Medicine. Two others were in the C range: Horticulture & Crop Science and Chemistry.

Three fell in the C range: Animal Sciences, Art Education, and Psychology.

There was one chair/director in the D+ range: Geography. Finally, there was one chair/director in the D range: Economics.

Overall, 10 of the 25 chairs/directors (40%) achieved an overall grade rating of B or better. This is a little better than was the case for the deans, but the typical administrator at OSU would fall below the minimum grade point required to be a graduate student at this institution.

Description of Respondents: A total of 530 faculty members returned FEAs in 2001. Of those who reported their gender, 327 were male (68.4%), and 151 were female (31.6%). There were 498 who reported fulltime employment status (99.2%), compared to 4 indicating part-time status (.8%). A total of 463 indicated they were on tenure lines (94.1%), while 19 indicated clinical status (3.9% and 10 “other” status (2.0%). For those who reported their rank, 4 indicated “instructor” (.8%), 110 “assistant professor” (22.9%), 165 “associate professor” (34.4%), and 201 “professor” (41.9%). There were 161 who reported being at OSU less than 10 years (33.1%), 169 for 11 to 20 years (34.8%), 108 for 21 to 30 years (22.2%), and 48 for over 30 years (9.9%). For race and ethnicity, 10 identified themselves as African American (2.2%), 16 as Asian American (3.6%), 2 as Hispanic (.4%), 1 as Native American (.2%), 402 as caucasian (89.9%), and 16 as “other” (3.6%).

Gerald Winer, Psychology, and Keith Kilty, Social Work

We welcome your replies and comments and requests for additional information. You can reach Gerald Winer at winer.1@osu.edu or Keith Kilty at kilty.1@osu.edu.

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