Senate Document 04-04

                                                                        Faculty Affairs Committee

                                                                        For Discussion

To: Purdue University Calumet Senate

From:  Faculty Affairs Committee

Re:  Assessment of Teaching and Learning

RESOLVED: 

The present Cafeteria system of student assessment of teaching will be eliminated, effective June 30, 2005.

A software program for data gathering and processing will be adopted.

Purdue University Calumet will adopt a variety of methods for assessing teaching and learning, including the following.

· Student assessment:

· Peer review systems

· Teaching portfolios

· Self evaluations

· Supervisor evaluations

· Assessments of student learning

· Faculty growth contracts

· Student performance measures

  The office of the VCAA will house and coordinate these instruments.

  Faculty will have the option of selecting from the above items those tools they wish to use for evaluation purposes.

Background and Rationale:

We have reached a critical point in that the Cafeteria system is no longer a viable instrument for this campus.  

Since 1974, Purdue University Calumet has measured teaching effectiveness using the Purdue University Cafeteria system.  Since at least 1980, faculty and administrators have expressed dissatisfaction with the instrument.  In 1993, the Council of Faculty Delegates passed document 93-05 with recommendations regarding the use of the Cafeterias as an instrument of evaluation of teaching effectiveness.  (See attached document).  In spring 2004, a committee was formed by the VCAA to recommend teaching assessment methods, both formative and evaluative, to be used by faculty to assess the quality and effectiveness of their teaching and to measure student learning.  This report (See attached) has been endorsed by the Academic Administrative Council (academic deans and directors).  The recommendations of the Faculty Affairs Committee are based on this report.

Points to consider:

• PUC is the only Purdue Campus to use the instrument.

• The instrument is not approved by many faculty and therefore is not used by many.  Among reasons given are the following:

¾ The form is cumbersome to fill out,

¾ It is often difficulty to get the forms back

¾ The questions are out of date

¾ Many questions do not measure the aspects of teaching that are currently important to faculty.

• PUC pays West Lafayette $20,000 a year to administer the instrument and spends an additional $4000 in administrative time on this campus. 

• Faculty cannot administer the assessment during the summer.

• Although faculty are expected to provide a measure of excellence in teaching as part of our annual evaluation, we have no good measure to demonstrate this excellence.

Approved:

Carolyn Boiarsky, Chair

Jai Agrawal

Milan Dakich

Musa Darayseh

Lisa Hollingsworth

Maureen Marthaler

Linda Mura