The Ohio State University has evolved over time with a continuous focus on
achieving excellence along all dimensions of research, teaching, and service. Perhaps
most noticeable over the years has been a concentration on developing all aspects of a
high performance culture in which outstanding achievements are aligned with carefully
guided decisions about resource allocations. At its core, the assumption is that
achievement of agreed upon performance objectives should provide the primary basis for
allocating institutional resources. In effect, accountability is a guiding principle that
should be reflected in guidance provided to individuals as well as in assessments of their
performance.
Furthermore, it is understood that for a high performance culture to succeed,
assessments of goals and supporting institutional actions to make such achievements
possible should be continuously discussed in an open and clear fashion. For example,
rather than developing static models of "once a year performance appraisal," the most
effective assessment process involves continuous coaching in which guidance is
provided, and linkages between performance and resource availabilities are consistently
clarified. At Ohio State we live in a dynamic institutional environment in which
continuous feedback is essential, not simply desirable.
It is also important to recognize that the university is committed to developing
policies guiding faculty reward systems that are clear and equitably implemented. Each
set of policies, while appropriately tailored to the specific needs of disciplines and
departments, is expected to explicitly address the following issues:
1. Annual performance appraisals reduced to writing and involving a face-to-face
interaction are essential. Without the ability to explore perspectives through
interaction, and without establishing the surety provided through written
commitments, one increases the likelihood of disagreements and
misunderstandings. Most importantly, without such actions the connections
between contributions and reward distributions will be murky and subject to
inaccurate assumptions.
2. Faculty members can and do contribute differently to the multiple missions of
departments and colleges at different points in their careers. At times it is
important to expect achievements in multiple dimensions; at other points in a
career, research achievements should weigh most heavily; at others it may be
more appropriate to acknowledge greater contributions to our teaching and service
missions. There should be explicit agreement with each faculty member about the
expected contribution focus or foci and the levels of achievement expected of
him/her in a given year. The overall mix of contribution patterns should be such
that the portfolio of department/college objectives is achieved.
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3. We all operate within relatively defined markets. Those markets should largely,
though not entirely, dictate levels of reward differentiation. That includes initial
salary levels, annual increases, and support resource distributions. Markets are
defined externally and not simply by rank. Thus, faculty members in some
disciplines will require higher salaries or different levels of support than those in
others. Furthermore, within markets, submarkets exist based on perceived
excellence. Thus, if faculty member A in market I is seen as more productive
than faculty member B also in market I, the salary and support levels for A will be
higher than for B, even if they are of the same rank. Such differences are a
reflection of scarcity, and that applies to gender, race, or other conditions that
might create scarcity. While difficult to accept for some, failure to recognize this
will deprive the university of its ability to compete effectively. Interestingly, one
also has to deal with the fact that markets are defined in part by like institutions.
Generally, top tier institutions will respond affirmatively to markets created by
other top tier institutions and not markets based on resources second or third tier
institutions are willing to allocate. Indeed, it is not unusual to find second or third
tier institutions over-committing resources to lure a faculty member from a top
tier program. That does not mean that the top tier program can or should
necessarily let that action set the market rate for the targeted faculty member.
4. Promotion standards should be explicit (i.e., written) and reflect the desire for
excellence in the pattern of contributions expected of faculty members. They
should also reflect the reality that (a) not all faculty members will be able to
contribute excellence in all evaluation dimensions and (b) there is a multi-faceted
institutional responsibility that must be achieved by the skills of faculty
collectively.
5. Faculty members actively participating in centers and institutes, or with joint
appointments, should have explicit a priori agreements about how rewards will be
distributed for specific activities. Thus, if a faculty member is publishing in a key
journal for the center or another department, but one not seen as "top tier" by the
home department, the impact of such action on reward distribution should be
clearly established. If we truly believe in the value of interdisciplinary work, then
rewards should flow from excellence in publications from center/institute as well
as home department perspectives. Similarly, agreements about teaching
effectiveness or service contributions should be clarified prior to any evaluation
period. Certainly, the impact of such interdisciplinary work on promotion and
tenure decisions should be clarified ahead of time and structured to encourage
such activity.
6. Distributions of college/department resources for travel, research assistance,
secretarial support, etc. should reflect the performance level of individual faculty
members. Such expectations must be established prior to any evaluation period.
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7. Faculty teaching assignments (e.g., measured by courses or credit hours) can
reflect the contribution levels of faculty to different college/department missions.
Thus, in order to secure roughly comparable support levels, faculty not
contributing significantly to research objectives should expect to contribute
through higher quality or more extensive service or teaching loads than faculty
having significant research impact. Similarly, faculty with outstanding teaching
performance may well expect lesser service obligations, and so on. The point is
simply that no two faculty members are exactly alike in ability to fulfill specific
department or college missions. Therefore, resource distributions to support them
should vary, and it follows that evaluation should then be different. The key is to
have discussions about such issues prior to any evaluation period.
8. There are times when faculty members or administrative leaders may wish to
change the nature or pattern of contributions an individual faculty member makes
to department goals. In such situations there should be agreement about
something akin to "investment credits" that a department or college is willing to
make to support the change needed or desired. However, those agreements
should be explicit and in the form of "if you do this (e.g., reinvigorate a research
program or improve teaching effectiveness) at a particular level of success (e.g.,
publish in a top tier journal or secure external funding or achieve specific
measures of teaching success), the department/college will do the following (e.g.,
provide summer support for x summers or provide a teaching assistant or provide
travel funds)."
9. Perceptions of fairness and equity are essential in any system for distributing
resources. If differentiation is perceived to be based not on performance but on
prejudice, stereotyping or other bias this will affect a unit's ability to recruit and
retain the very best talent available. If, over time, such inequities develop in a
unit, good leadership calls for the active correction of such inequities. But this
refers to market based inequities, not differences based solely on rank or time in
system unless these factors are explicitly made part of the reward distribution
system. If a unit's leadership waits for someone to demonstrate "market value"
by waiting for actual receipt of an outside offer, it is simply granting another
institution the psychological edge for recruiting away an undervalued faculty
resource. As a simple practical matter, it is almost always the case that it is more
expensive to retain a faculty member after an external offer is received. A key
function of department/college leadership is to proactively assess the market value
of faculty and allocate resources in a way consistent with such assessments.
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