Faculty members’ work was still greatly affected by the pandemic in 2021 (and will continue to be in 2022 as well, given the omicron variant and recent announcements about resuming restrictions on in-person activity and travel). To get a sense of how significant the effects have been this year, earlier this term we asked members: “Has the pandemic affected your work this year to the point that you don’t believe it can be fairly evaluated using the normal performance review process?”
We were particularly concerned with responses from probationary (pre-tenure) and definite-term members, as the biennial review schedule means that tenured and continuing faculty will automatically receive the same score as last year, when all faculty had the option to forego being evaluated in any given area (and receive an average of recent years’ scores for that area).
One third of all probationary/definite-term members of FAUW responded to this poll, and 71% of those said “Yes, I think we need an adjusted review process for 2021” (of all respondents, including tenured/continuing members, 63% said yes).
We also asked if members had been able to plan for “alternate arrangements” for winter 2022 courses, as per a November 3 email from the AVPA. Of those of you who had at least partially made such arrangements for winter 2022 as of November 18 (108), 48% said it had moderately affected your workload, 18% said it had immensely affected your workload.
Over the last few weeks, we have shared the results of these polls with the administration at Faculty Relations Committee andasked for the same modified APR process as last year.Our arguments were two-fold: The university must acknowledge the ongoing effects of the pandemic (on workload, mental health, the ability to conduct research, the teaching environment, and so on); and returning to a normal evaluation process this year is inequitable.
As one member put it: “It is totally inequitable for pre-tenure or definite-term faculty to not have the option for an adjusted scoring process in 2021, given that tenured and continuing folks like me have been effectively awarded adjusted scoring in 2021 [since scores from last year will be repeated].” If this results in overall lower scores for non-tenured/definite-term faculty, they “will receive a smaller share of the merit increase pool relative to their tenured/continuing colleagues.”
We are very disappointed to report that these concerns are not being recognized.
If you are concerned about this, please email fauw@uwaterloo.ca and we will collect and forward your concerns (anonymously) to the administration. You can also, of course, email the provost or your dean directly (and please copy us if you do).
These issues are just part of the continual increase in expectations and demands on faculty time, some of which we explore more in a recent blog post.