ADVANCE IT: OU Elevate-Implementing Equitable Multi-Context Faculty Evaluations and Workload Distributions

The University of Oklahoma ADVANCE Institutional Transformation project (OU Elevate) will address differential retention and promotion rates for faculty that identify as women and Faculty with Intersecting Marginalized Identities (FIMI), focusing on the connection between these inequitable outcomes and the policies and practices present in annual faculty performance evaluations. Existing annual evaluation systems for faculty performance largely fail to document the impact of the entire scope of faculty work.

This results in faculty activities that are most impactful and critical to the missions of educational institutions, such as inspiring and inclusive teaching, synergic and convergent research, and engaged and meaningful service, being undervalued. While many academic units or colleges may have attempted to develop faculty annual evaluation systems that address these challenges, there is lack of resources on how to identify, measure, and reward faculty impact that is in alignment with institutional goals and societal needs.

OU Elevate will develop a multi-context toolkit for annual faculty performance evaluation using universal design theory that values a broad range of activities, including dimensions of faculty performance that are more difficult to measure and quantify. The implementation of this toolkit is expected to have positive outcomes for all faculty that engage in the critical yet previously undervalued work, but particularly for STEM women faculty and faculty at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities, groups that research shows are more likely to engage in these impactful but under-acknowledged activities.

The toolkit and tests of its effectiveness will be shared publicly for implementation and scaling by other institutions through a webinar, online resources, and peer-reviewed publications.

OU Elevate leverages lessons from prior NSF-funded projects, literature on faculty evaluation and workload, and extensive faculty input from across STEM academic units at OU, to develop a comprehensive and customizable toolkit for equitable and transparent faculty annual performance evaluation and workload distribution. The toolkit will be piloted, validated, and institutionalized across all OU STEM units, as well as shared with other institutions.

OU Elevate will collaborate with the Center for Faculty Excellence to develop immersive, active training for faculty and unit leaders on the purpose of the changes in the annual evaluation process. OU Elevate hypothesizes that training, combined with customizing the evaluation tools and workload distribution within units, will result in annual evaluation systems designed to value multi-context activities and perspectives, leading to increased engagement of faculty in these valued and impactful activities.

When policies and accountability measures are implemented, equitable and transparent workload distribution and annual faculty evaluations can be achieved across demographic groups, supporting increased satisfaction with faculty workload and evaluation systems, ultimately impacting retention and promotion of faculty, achievement of institutional goals, and broader societal impacts. The OU Provost’s office is committed to supporting the development, testing, and implementation of revised faculty workload distribution and annual performance evaluation systems.

The OU Elevate organization structure follows a model of faculty-administrator collaborations on the OU campus to enact institutional change through shared governance.

The NSF ADVANCE program is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of diverse faculty in academic institutions. Organizational barriers that inhibit equity may exist in policies, processes, practices, and the organizational culture and climate.

ADVANCE "Institutional Transformation" awards provide support for the development and testing of new systemic change strategies for gender equity in institutions of higher education.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.