In Autumn 2024, the FCTL was charged with developing recommendations for how faculty are reviewed by their colleagues to increase equity and transparency in this process and focus the reviews on University of Washington’s core elements of effective teaching.
The FCTL subcommittee on collegial review solicited and reviewed examples of existing collegial review processes from a range of UW departments on all three campuses (e.g. UWT SIAS, UW Bothell Physics, UW Seattle COE). The subcommittee also reviewed the extensive literature on best practices in collegial evaluations as well as examples developed through federally-funded efforts to improve the collegial review process nationally (e.g. TEval, Bay View Alliance). The subcommittee then generated a recommended collegial review process informed by these resources, including a template for faculty to use when performing collegial reviews.
The goal of our recommended collegial review process is to provide 1) formative feedback to faculty on their teaching and 2) document iterative and reflective teaching practices for the faculty member’s reappointment and/or promotion package. We based these recommendations on the following elements outlined in the Guides to Advance Teaching Evaluation (GATEs):
- Structured: to reduce bias and decrease impact of power differential, a departmental/school policy articulates the selection of a reviewer, the frequency of reviews, and provides a template to reduce subjectivity and align review with faculty code on teaching
- Reliable: multiple sources of information are reviewed e.g. canvas site, prior collegial reviews, syllabus, reviewee’s input
- Longitudinal: places observation in context of previous observations, provides evidence of reviewee reflection and/or iteration in response to prior feedback
In Spring 2025, the subcommittee solicited feedback on our recommendations from 15 faculty/units who are actively engaged in reforming their collegial review process.
We revised our recommendations based on this feedback and to best support implementation of changes to the UW faculty code passed in Spring 2025 (Faculty Code sect 24-32) that state “instruction must be judged according to each of the following core elements of effective teaching: aligned, inclusive & equitable, active & engaged, growth-oriented, relevant.”
We are currently (Winter 2026) piloting our revised process/template with faculty in a wide range of departments and units across all three campuses.