Fairhaven College Narrative Evaluation Policy

Narrative evaluations are at the core of Fairhaven’s educational philosophy and mission. All students who complete their work and self-evaluations for Fairhaven (FAIR) classes and ISPs (FAIR), including senior projects and internships, are to receive a narrative evaluation from the faculty member (NTT, tenure-track, or tenured) teaching the class or sponsoring the independent work. It is the obligation of every faculty member to complete narrative evaluations in a timely manner.

Narrative Evaluation Policy

1. Narrative evaluations are due to be completed by the Friday following the Tuesday grade due date at the end of each quarter.
2. After the narrative evaluation due date, the Dean, in collaboration with the Curriculum and Records Manager, will check to see if there are any uncompleted narrative evaluations.
3. The Dean will notify in writing any faculty members who have more than ten uncompleted narrative evaluations, including faculty sponsoring student-taught courses.
4. Faculty will have five days to respond to the Dean in writing with a plan for a completion date of the uncompleted narrative evaluations. The completion date must be sometime before the end of the following quarter.
5. All faculty who do not complete narrative evaluations by the due date are required to contact the students affected and inform them of their completion plans. When the narrative evaluations are completed, faculty are required to contact the students to let them know their evaluations are done.
6. If a faculty member completes their narrative evaluations by the completion date, no further consequences will follow.
7. If a faculty member does not complete their narrative evaluations by the completion date, or by the end of the quarter following the quarter for which the narrative evaluations were due, the Dean will write a letter to be put in the faculty member’s permanent file and to be included in any subsequent review.
8. Each academic year, if a faculty member has more than ten uncompleted narrative evaluations on June 30, they will be ineligible the next academic year to apply for professional leave, summer research and teaching grants, summer teaching, and other similar benefits.
9. When a faculty member goes up for review (probationary, tenure, promotion, or post-tenure) the Dean will notify all tenured faculty the narrative evaluation status of the faculty member at the beginning of the review process. Failure to complete narrative evaluations counts as failure to meet the standards of excellence in teaching required for promotion, tenure, and post-tenure review.
10. In exceptional circumstances the Dean may reappoint a probationary faculty member with a backlog of more than ten uncompleted narrative evaluations after their annual review, but this cannot happen more than once. 
11. When an NTT faculty member is reviewed for rehire, completion or noncompletion of narrative evaluations will be a significant factor in whether they continue to teach at Fairhaven.

Passed at All College Meeting on June 2, 2021 for an initial period of 1-year

Implementation began on September 15, 2021