College and Research Libraries THOMAS YEN-RAN YEH Library Peer Evaluation For Pro ~notion and Merit Increase: How It Works Library peer evaluation for promotion and special merit increase was introduced at the Bouillon Library in the 1971-72 academic year. The evaluations, in addition to reinforcing the dean of library services' recommendations, revealed how the librarians rated each other by de- partment, position, and sex. CENTRAL WASHINGTON STATE COLLEGE is a liberal arts and teacher-training college, with 7,000 students and 380 fac- ulty members. Central's Bouillon Li- brary houses both the audiovisual li- brary and the traditional printed li- brary. Central's librarians were granted faculty status in 1954. In 1962, librari- ans including media professionals were granted full faculty status. As the M.A.L.S. degree was recognized as the terminal degree for librarians in 1971, most were eligible for promotion. In the 1971-72 academic year, Bouil- lon Library had twenty-one library fac- ulty members and forty-five civil service employees. The library's faculty was di- vided into three divisions, Audiovisual, Public Service, and Technical Service. Each division was headed by an assistant director who reported to the dean of li- brary services. Among the twenty-one li- brary faculty members, there were one professor, five associate professors, twelve assistant professors, and three in- Mr. Yen-Ran Yeh is assistant professor of librarianship and head, Cataloging De- partment, Central Washington State Col- lege, Ellensburg, Washington.. 270 I structors. All library faculty had master degrees; three had doctorates, five had second master degrees, and one was an ABD. A five-page faculty evaluation form, developed in 1968-69 was previously used to evaluate library faculty for re- appointment, promotion, special merit increase, and tenure. This was the first time that Bouillon Library faculty had used a peer-evaluation system. A Person- nel Committee was elected in the 1971 -72 academic year, consisting of four members, one representing each of the three divisions and a fourth one elected at large. 1 The Personnel Committee was instructed by the dean of library ser- vices to revise the old evaluation form, which had taken much time to process. After several weeks of deliberation, the Personnel Committee presented a new one-page evaluation form which was adopted by the library faculty. (See Ap- pendix) During the fall quar~er, each library faculty member was asked to fill out a professional service record with his latest achievements in working effective- ness, scholarship and productivity, spe- cial services to library and college, and professional activities. This record was • + attached to the faculty evaluation forms and served as the basis for peer evaluation. The Personnel Committee sent evaluation forms to each library faculty member on January 31, 1971. Each member had two weeks to com- plete the evaluation forms for his peers. After the Personnel Committee received all the evaluation forms, the committee secretary compiled a sum- mary rating sheet for each faculty member. The Personnel Committee met on February 17, 1972 with the dean of li- brary services, a nonvoting member, since the dean, according to Library Per- sonnel Committee guidelines, serves as an ex-officio member of the Personnel Committee. Each committee member and the dean read all the evaluations, except those forms for himself; no fac- ulty, including the committee members, would discover how his peers evaluated him. The committee evaluated each fac- ulty member to determine promotion and special merit increase. When a com- mittee member was being evaluated, the member would leave the room. The committee recommended eleven library faculty for promotion: two to full pro- fessor, six to associate professor, and three to assistant prbfessor. In addition, seven library faculty were recommend- ed for special merit increases. The committee later wrote a letter summanz1ng the recommendations, which all four members signed, and sent it to the vice-president for academ- ic affairs with copies to the dean and each committee member. The dean of Library Services for- warded his own independent recom- mendations to the vice-president for academic affairs. The dean recommend- ed eight library faculty for promotion: two to full professor, four to associate professor, and two to assistant profes- sor. The dean also recommended five faculty for special merit increases with Library Peer Evaluation I 271 the provision that those not promoted be considered for merit. The eight fac- ulty recommended for promotion by the dean were also recommended by the committee. The dean's special merit-in- crease list (subsequently increased to twelve) included all faculty recom- mended by the committee and more. The dean defended each case for promotion to the College Committee on Promotion at its March 8 session, with assistance from the Personnel Commit- tee chairman. On the basis of the Col- lege Committee's decisions, the vice-pres- ident for academic affairs recommended to the president six library faculty for promotion. The president then recom- mended the nominees to the Board of Trustees who approved the promotions. In all, five library faculty , were pro- moted: one to professor, two to associ- ate professor, and two to assistant pro- fessor. All five faculty promoted were recom- mended by both the dean and the Per- sonnel Committee. Three library facul- ty recommended by both the dean and the committee were not promoted. Three faculty recommended by the committee but not by the dean also failed to be promoted. Recommendations of both the dean and the Personnel Committee were necessary, although no guarantee to pro- motion. The dean later compiled a priority list of special merit increases. J\s the li- brary's fund could only provide five half steps of merit increase, only the top five faculty on the list received this - increase. 2 The evaluation forms showed that the library faculty tended to endorse promotion more favorably than special merit increase: they cast 51.93 percent yes votes for faculty promotion, and 37.53 percent yes votes for special merit increase (which had been null the pre- vious year ) . 3 One delicate point of peer evaluation is evaluation of supervisors by nonsu- 272 I College & Research Libraries • July 1973 pervisors. ·The supervisor here is a li- brary faculty who supervises one or more library faculty (this does not in- clude supervision of civil-service em- ployees). Supervisors eligible for pro- motion received 69.05 percent yes votes from nonsupervisors, as compared with 51.93 percent yes votes from all library faculty. Nonsupervisors seem to strong- ly endorse the promotion of their super- visors. As for special merit increase for su- pervisors, nonsupervisors cast 33.33 per- cent yes votes, which is below the ·37.73 percent _total library average. Nonsuper- visors tended to recommend either pro- motion or special merit increase to su- pervisors, but not both. Thus, because the majorfty of nonsupervisors recom- mended supervisors for promotion, the percentage of positive special merit in- crease votes for supervisors was relative- ly lower. Perhaps reflecting the women's libera- tion movement, and the fact that fe- male librarians' salaries are generally lower than those of male librarians, fe- male faculty cast 52.78 percent yes votes for female faculty special merit in- creases, as compared with 42.42 percent yes votes for male faculty increases. Ironically, however, because female faculty held fewer advanced degrees be- yond M.A.L.S. and listed fewer scholar- ly .activities, female faculty cast only 50 percent yes votes for female faculty promotion and 32.81 percent no votes as compared with 58.73 percent yes votes for male faculty promotion and 15.87 percent no votes. This points out one dilemma for the female library faculty. Although they want equal job oppor- tunity and equal pay, unfortunately, they are handicapped by being less pre- pared than the male faculty. The three divisions of the library, Audiovisual, Technical Service, and Public Service, evaluated each other. A summary of the results are shown in Tables 1 and 2. TABLE 1 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PROMOTION Yes Public Service candidates: Votes from Audiovisual division 64.58% Votes from Technical Service division 53.19% Audiovisual candidates: Votes from Public Service division 75% Votes from Technical Service division 66.66% Technical Service candidates: Votes from Audiovisual division 20% Votes from Public Service division 35% TABLE 2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MERIT INCREASES Public Service candidates: Votes from Audiovisual division Votes from Technical Service division Audiovisual candidates: Votes from Public Service division Votes from Technical Service division Technical Service candidates: Votes from Audiovisual division Votes from Public Service division Yes 27.08% 33.3% 43.75% 27.78% 13.33% 35% No Abstain 31.25% 4.17% 19'.15% 27.66% 0% 25% 16.67% 16.67% 66.67% 13.33% 42.5% 22.5% No Abstain 22.92% 50% 27.1% 39'.6% 12.5% 43.75% 25% 44.22% 36.67% 50% 27.5% 37.5% ,., ,.,. The Audiovisual division received the most favorable endorsement for promo- tion and merit increase by the other two divisions. Central Washington State Col- lege has a strong Audiovisual division, both in quality of faculty and service which might have affected this favor- able vote. Technical Services received the least for promotion and merit in- crease, perhaps because of the nature of technical service work. Another observation from this study is that promotion from instructor to as- sistant professor is almost automatic af- ter a person has served five years in the instructor rank. The higher the rank, the more difficult is promotion. The rank of professor is the most difficult to achieve. Peer evaluation, as demonstrated at the Bouillon Library, allowed every li- brary faculty member a chance to par- ticipate in management. Rather than diminishing the dean of library services' authority in recommending promotion and special merit increase, peer evalua- tion served to strengthen his recommen- dations. The dean could base his recom- mendations on peer information and vote. Library faculty opinion and the d ean's judgement overlapp ed. Peer eval- Library Peer Evaluation I 213 uation took more time, but as a result the Bouillon Library received the high- est number of promotions among all de- partments in the 1971-1972 academic year. A longer period of study would be essential, however, for confirmation of the results of peer evaluation. REFERENCES 1. The author was elected chairman of the committee. 2 . In the past, all evaluation forms were de- stroyed each year after the College Commit- tee had acted upon all of the recommenda- tions. In the 1971-1972 academic year, upon the author's request, it was decided by library faculty that the author be authorized to keep all evaluation forms except his own for further study. He was asked to make the results available to the library faculty that they might better understand the peer eval- uation procedure and could improve the pro- cedure for next year. 3. There were a substantial number of absten- tions. Normally, if a faculty member re- ceived a majority of yes votes, a few absten- tions and no votes would not count against him. However, if he received a large num- ber of abstentions, then his yes votes would be reduced, and his chance to be recom- mended for promotion and special merit in- crease would be relatively lower. Therefore, to a certain degree, abstentions are unfavor- able votes. APPENDIX SAMPLE EvALUATION FoRM DEPARTMENT . ... .. ...... . . ... ... . . . ... . . ... ... .... DATE EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATION FOR ........ .. ... . . .. ...... ..... .. .. . 0 REAPPOINTMENT 0 PROFESSOR FOR 0 SPECIAL INCREMENT PROMOTION TO 0 ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR 0 TENURE 0 ASSISTANT PROFESSOR 0 INSTRUCTOR To be completed by all Library faculty members and forwarded to the vice-president for academic affairs via the Personnel Committee. The following criteria are to be used in making a decision. Each person is asked to evaluate frankly and objectively each criterion. ("1" is low with "9" the highest rating. N stands for no basis for judgment.) You may prefer to comment on the reverse instead of using the rating. 1. Teaching and/or professional effectiveness. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 N 274 I College & Research Libraries • July 1973 2. Scholarship and productivity. 3. Personal qualities (degree to which person exhibits character and personality traits that command respect of associates ) . 4. Special services (acceptance and fulfillment of de- 5. partment and college assignments). Professional activities and public services ( commu- nity, state, or national). 6. Overall rating of competence of the faculty member. REAPPOINTMENT 0 I recommend reappointment. 0 I do not recommend reappointment. SPECIAL INCREMENT 0 I recommend a special (merit) salary increment. 0 I do not recommend a special (merit) salary increment. TENURE (Only tenured faculty recommend on tenure) 0 I recommend tenure. 0 I do not recommend tenure at this time. PROMOTION 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 N 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 N 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 N 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 N 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 N 0 I recommend promotion to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (rank). 0 I do not recommend promotion at this time. COMMENTS (may use reverse side) : Signature ..... .. .. . ... ...... . . . .. .... .. . .. ........ .. . 1