University Performance Management
A public university with 800 faculty is replacing narrative performance reviews with a goal-and-rating system. The provost announced the change at a town hall without consulting the faculty senate. The vendor has been selected, and a pilot is scheduled in two colleges in three months. Tenure-track faculty fear ratings will undermine academic freedom and reward popularity. Staff unions are concerned about equity across job families. Deans are split: some want modernization, others say faculty governance has been bypassed. The faculty handbook requires senate review of academic personnel policies. The project team has one change manager, no faculty advisory group, and a communication plan that consists of a website FAQ. The board wants full rollout in 12 months. No readiness or stakeholder analysis has been completed.
1. What governance and readiness issues must be resolved before the pilot, and how?
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Governance comes first. The faculty handbook requires senate review of academic personnel policies. Proceeding without it creates a legitimacy problem that can become formal opposition. Pause the pilot until the senate's academic personnel committee reviews the design, or reframe the pilot as non-binding and excluded from tenure and promotion decisions. Readiness issues: faculty fear ratings will undermine academic freedom; deans are split; there is no faculty advisory group; the website FAQ is not engagement. Build a joint steering group with senate representatives, deans, and HR. Clarify what ratings will and will not be used for. Address staff union equity separately, because job families differ. Reasoning: in shared governance, consultation is a decision-rights issue, not a communications tactic. If the provost insists on speed, the risk is a vote of no confidence, not just resistance. Recommend a 60-day governance sprint before the pilot.
2. How would you engage deans and faculty senate without letting the process stall indefinitely?
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Use bounded engagement. Create a six-week working group with a written charter, decision rights, and a deadline. Give the senate real design choices, such as the rating scale, appeal process, and use in promotion, rather than an open-ended review. Meet deans individually to surface the split; ask each to nominate a representative. Recruit faculty champions from each college. Publish what changed because of input. Reasoning: shared governance requires genuine influence, but change needs pace. The judgment is to separate consultation on academic policy from co-design of implementation details. If consensus fails, escalate to the provost with options, not a blank delay. Avoid relying on a website FAQ; use department meetings and small-group sessions. Also, do not let the pilot become a referendum on the provost; keep the conversation on design choices.