Review Procedures for Core School Deans

Scope

1. Pursuant to IC-21-38-11, faculty governance organization actions are advisory only. To the extent that any portion of this policy conflicts with IC-21-38-11, Indiana law shall control. 
2. A foundational principle of Indiana University is its enduring partnership across its units, including faculty, to collectively advance the institution's mission. The establishment, revision, and retirement of academic policies will occur with consultation and input from the University Faculty Council. 
3. As of the effective date, this policy applies to the following Deans who report to the Bloomington campus chief academic officer: 

1. Dean of the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering 
2. Dean of the Kelley School of Business 
3. Dean of the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs

1. Dean of the School of Nursing 
2. Dean of the School of Social Work 

Back to top

Policy Statement

1. Core School Deans who report to the Bloomington campus chief academic officer, shall have their performance and that of their offices evaluated on a regular basis. 
2. Core School Deans who report to the IUI campus Chancellor, shall have their performance and that of their offices evaluated on a regular basis. 

Back to top

Reason for Policy

1. Review provides a formal, systematic mechanism for faculty to have input into assessment of administrators. Well-designed reviews at regular intervals also provide opportunities for input and feedback for the improvement of administration, provide opportunities to acknowledge successful administration, and encourage both the administration generally and the individual administrator to set appropriate goals for the unit in question and to assess the administrator’s success in reaching those goals. 
2. Review extends beyond the review of the individual administrator because, in general, it stimulates internal review of the units for which the administrator is responsible, and it allows those most directly affected (i.e., the faculty, students, and staff) to study the administrator's responsibilities. 
3. Formally detailing separate review procedures for Deans of Core Schools is desirable due to the inevitable complexities of administration in these multi-campus programs 

Back to top

Procedures

A. For each of these Deans, a comprehensive review (hereafter referred to as review) shall be conducted early in the fifth year in office and at recurring intervals of five years or more frequently if desired by the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer. In addition, independent of these comprehensive reviews, each Dean shall be evaluated by a survey distributed to the faculty of the Dean's unit at the beginning of the Dean’s third year in office (see section K). TheChancellor and/or chief academic officer will provide reasonable and adequate staff and financial support for these review activities. 

B. In the spring semester of each academic year, the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer shall provide the University Faculty Council with a list of all Core School Deans subject to review the following year. The Chancellor and/or chief academic officer shall request the creation of Review Committees simultaneously with the announcement of the Deans to be reviewed in order to allow at least one semester for completion of the Review process. Review committees will normally be established early in the fall semester and each review process will normally be completed early in the succeeding spring semester, or before. Each review committee will be assured of enough time to complete its work in a manner consistent with its charge. 

C. The Chancellor and/or chief academic officer shall have responsibility for selecting the members of the Review Committees according to the following procedures: 

1. The Executive Committee of the Indianapolis Faculty Council and the Nomination Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council shall seek names from the Advisory Committee, Policy Committee, or similar faculty-elected committee (whichever is appropriate) of the unit being reviewed, and from other relevant groups, to be considered for inclusion in the list to be provided by the University Faculty Council Executive Committee. The majority of the members of each Review Committee shall be full-time faculty from the unit whose Dean is being reviewed. Relevant members of the university community may be nominated for membership on the review committee. 
2. The UFC Executive Committee shall submit a list of prospective Review Committee members to the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer. The UFC Executive Committee’s list shall contain approximately one-third more names than the number of committee members anticipated by the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer to be on the Review Committee, so as to provide him or her with some choice in the selection of members for the committee. The Chancellor has full discretion to appoint only those individuals nominated by the UFC Executive Committeeto the Review Committee as faculty representatives, or to include other individuals on the Review Committee as faculty representatives. 
3. The number of faculty selected from each campus in the Core School shall roughly mirror the proportion of faculty from each such campus. 
4. In addition to receiving nominations for the Review Committee from the University Faculty Council, the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer shall solicit nominations from appropriate representative student and staff bodies as well as other constituencies, as appropriate, on both campuses. 
5. The Dean under review shall not provide any nominations for the Review Committee. 
6. Before being finalized, the composition of the Review Committee shall be reviewed by the Dean, who may object to any nominee for cause. The Chancellor and/or chief academic officer may give appropriate weight to these objections in forming the Review Committee. 

D. The Chancellor and/or chief academic officer may select a senior faculty member to chair the Review Committee. The Chancellor will endeavor to identify candidates that were current or former Deans for this role. 

E. The Chancellor and/or chief academic officer and the co-chairs of the UFC shall convene the Review Committee. The Chancellor and/or chief academic officer shall provide the Review Committee with a description of the duties and responsibilities of the Dean under Review, and the Dean to be reviewed will provide a statement of her or his own goals and objectives. The Review Committee shall respond with data to the following questions as a minimum: 

1. How has the Dean exercised leadership of the unit, including working with appropriate constituencies to establish, maintain, and facilitate clear goals and objectives? 
2. To what extent does the Dean facilitate the achievement of these goals and objectives? 
3. How effectively does the Dean represent and promote the school to constituencies outside the university, including state stakeholders, national peers, and international groups? 
4. How well has the Dean managed resources to maintain the integrity of the unit when faced with outside pressures? 
5. How is the unit perceived by its faculty and staff? How is the unit perceived on each campus of the Core School and throughout the university system? 
6. How effectively has the Dean led the unit in carrying out unit and campus policies on both campuses, including implementing policy UA-01, Non-Discrimination,and aligning the campus’ and school’s strategic plans? 
7. What are the Dean's strengths and weaknesses and their impact upon his or her effectiveness? 

1. Opportunities for involvement should be provided to all stakeholder groups, including students, who can reasonably be assumed to have valuable input on the Dean’s effectiveness. This involvement should include opportunities to suggest questions that may be important within the context of the Dean’s specific unit. 
2. Although surveys, as described in Section K, are an important part of the review process, they should not be the only method through which data are collected. Interviews, focus groups, document analysis, and examination of extant data, among other methods, could all be used to gather information on the Dean’s effectiveness. Ideally, most findings – and all critical findings – should be checked using multiple methods. 
3. Multiple members of the committee, from both campuses, should be involved in the analysis of data to ensure that one person’s perspective does not dominate the summary and recommendations in the final report. 

1. The Committee shall provide the reviewed Dean with a copy of the draft report. 
2. The Committee chair and a committee member of full faculty rank  recommended by the Committee shall meet (not less than three days later) with the Dean being reviewed to discuss the draft report. The Dean should be given an opportunity to respond, in writing, to the committee's findings before the committee meets with the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer. 
3. The Committee shall consider the Dean’s feedback, if any is offered, and prepare the final report. 
4. The Review Committee then shall meet with the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer to submit and discuss its final report, including the Dean’s written response to the final report, if one is provided. 
5. The Chancellor and/or chief academic officer shall meet with the Dean to discuss the final report. 

I. Copies of the reports of the Reviews of the Deans listed in the Scope above shall be conveyed to the Executive Committees of the University Faculty Council, the Bloomington Faculty Council, and the Indianapolis Faculty Council, and to the Dean's elected Policy Committee or corresponding elected governing body. A final report may be made public at the discretion of the Dean reviewed. 

J. The Chancellor and/or chief academic officer, in consultation with the UFC Executive Committee and Review Committee chair, shall determine what elements of the final report and the Chancellor’s and/or chief academic officer’s response should be included in a public summary document. That document must include an accurate characterization of the results of any data collection activities conducted by the Review Committee, although stakeholders’ verbatim quotes should not be included. The summary report should be distributed to all faculty and staff in the applicable core school. 

K. Surveys shall be conducted as follows: 

1. The survey shall be conducted at the beginning of a Dean's third year in office. Thereafter, a survey shall be conducted as part of each comprehensive review. 
2. The Chancellor and/or chief academic officer shall appoint an independent agent (such as the IUB Center for Survey Research or the IUI Survey Research Center) to design and conduct the survey. 
3. The survey shall be in three parts: 

1.  A set of approximately 10 questions, the same for all Deans, drafted by the University Faculty Council Executive Committee in consultation with the survey agent and approved by the University Faculty Council. These questions will address such issues as the Dean's leadership, administrative skills, encouragement of faculty, and program development. 
2. A set of approximately 5 unit-specific questions prepared by the Review Committee in the case of a survey conducted in connection with a comprehensive Review, or by the Dean’s elected Policy Committee or corresponding elected governing body, in the case of a survey conducted at the beginning of the Dean’s third year in office. 
3. Sufficient space for written comments. 

4. The survey agent shall send a copy of the survey to each faculty member of the Dean's unit and collect all faculty responses within a specified period of time. The agent shall make a tabulation of the responses to the questions and a compilation of the written comments, without reference to the originator. Surveys should be administered in accord with customary practices designed to ensure the integrity of the process and to protect the identity of respondents by removing the names of respondents before survey results are released to the Dean under review, the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer, or others. 

L. A copy of the written comments shall be conveyed to the Dean and to the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer and shall be treated as confidential. The tabulated results of the remainder of the survey shall be conveyed to the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer, to the Dean, and to the Dean's elected Policy Committee or corresponding elected governing body. In the case of a survey conducted in connection with a comprehensive Review, the results also shall be made available to the Review Committee. The tabulated results shall be treated as confidential unless confidentiality is waived by the Dean. 

M. In the case of a survey conducted in connection with a comprehensive Review, the tabulated results of the survey shall be reflected in the draft and final reports. In the case of an initial survey of a Dean, the Chancellor and/or chief academic officer shall prepare a summary report of the tabulated survey results, in conformity with the procedures of consultation stipulated in Section K above. 

Back to top

History

University Faculty Council March 23, 2010.

Minor amendments by UFC to reflect changes in the names and structures of affected units, April 25, 2023 and approved by the University President.

In July 2024, references to the renamed IU Indianapolis campus were updated in this policy.

Back to top