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 91自拍鈥檚 .听
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. , UW Bothell Physics, ). 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. , ). 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鈥檚 reappointment and/or promotion package.听 We based these recommendations on the following elements outlined in the Guides to Advance Teaching Evaluation ():
- 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鈥檚 input
- Longitudinal: places observation in context of previous observations, provides evidence of reviewee reflection and/or iteration in response to prior feedback聽
In Spring 2025, the subcommittee solicited feedback on our recommendations from 15 faculty/units who are actively engaged in reforming their collegial review process.听
We revised our recommendations based on this feedback and to best support implementation of changes to the UW faculty code passed in Spring 2025 () that state 鈥渋nstruction must be judged according to each of the following core elements of effective teaching: aligned, inclusive & equitable, active & engaged, growth-oriented, relevant.鈥�
The revised process and template were piloted in Winter 2026 through the FCTL site with links to the documents and access to a survey for general feedback. Members of the subcommittee also directly requested feedback from individuals in 17 departments across all 3 campuses including School of Medicine, College of Engineering, College of Environment, College of Arts & Sciences, The Information School, School of Law, School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences (at UW Tacoma and UW Bothell), and School of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics.
Importantly, the resources were also directly shared with all Deans as part of an Office for Academic Personnel and Faculty (OAPF) leadership series that included a workshop on Improving Teaching Effectiveness, co-organized by the Center for Teaching and Learning and FCTL. The subcommittee co-chairs gave presentations and solicited feedback from leadership committees on all three campuses including the UW Bothell Campus Council on Academic Standards (CCAS), the UW Bothell Campus Council on Assessment and Learning (CCAL), the UW Tacoma Executive Council and through participation in a panel discussion for the College of Engineering organized by Engineering Teaching and Learning. Based on this feedback, the resources were significantly streamlined for ease of use and the language was adjusted to adhere to guidelines established in the Faculty Code.
Note: The resulting resources are focused on collegial review of courses and do not readily support assessment of faculty who teach and mentor outside of a course structure (e.g. single lectures, resident training, bedside teaching, graduate student mentoring). We recommend future work be directed toward this goal and include representation of faculty with expertise in these areas.