The Provost and Deans have asked schools or departments to develop transparent guidelines for the evaluation of teaching effectiveness. This is in response to shared governance — a December 2022 recommendation from the Faculty Affairs Committee to move forward on this issue — and a decade of calls by faculty across appointment types for improved transparency, consistency, and research-informed practices in the evaluation of teaching (see the Historical Overview for more information). Transparent standards for teaching effectiveness and clear evaluation processes support our commitment to effective teaching and provide clear expectations for faculty.
Unless they have already done so, departments or schools will draft and begin to implement guidelines drawing upon materials and templates developed over the past three years in a consultative, collaborative, and faculty-driven process informed by the scholarship of teaching and learning. These Teaching Effectiveness Standards and Evaluation (TESE or “Tessy”) materials serve as a resource for programs in their articulation of selected dimensions of teaching effectiveness and the multiple sources of evidence that faculty will be expected to provide for their evaluations. Programs are welcome simply to use these materials with minor adjustments as an initial pilot.
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All programs at the department or school level will draw upon these materials and submit initial drafts of their standards no later than March 15, 2025.
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Pilot TESE Materials will be reviewed by the UCC-approved TESE Review Task Force in March 2025. Departments will revise their draft standards in light of Task Force feedback and resubmit for approval by May 9, 2025.
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Programs will then pilot their approved draft TESE on select faculty annual reviews in 2025-26.
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Departments and programs will collect representative faculty feedback in Winter 2026 and revise their TESE accordingly. They will submit their evaluation and revised TESE to the TESE Review Task Force in Spring 2026.
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Deans will review and recommend to Provost for final approval.
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Under auspices of the Provost, Faculty Affairs will establish a repository for all approved standards.
- Final TESE guidelines will be approved and in use for all faculty evaluations by Fall 2026.
There are two options for submitting. The simplest one (Option A) invites programs to use this worksheet to fill out all the criteria required for the TESE submission, including the definition of teaching effectiveness, the guidelines, the rubric, and all the supporting documentation. Please download the worksheet and make a copy for your own use. The completed worksheet can be uploaded using this Google Form on the TESE Tracker website.
Option B uses the same Google Form for submission, but each required element will be uploaded as a separate document. Departments should review the checklist for their pilot TESE process and materials to be sure they have completed all the required elements.
The TESE tracker can be used to upload materials and to view all approved TESE pilots.
By February 23, 2023
Provosts and Deans ask departments to draw on guidelines materials to draft and implement TESE on one of two cycles.
By March 15, 2023
Departments choose cycle A or B and communicate choice to Provosts and Deans via Google form. Semester schools use Cycle B or suggest alternative dates for Cycle A in 2023-2024.
2023-2026
To submit a document, click the appropriate header link on the TESE Tracker. It will take you to the Google submission form for the step you are completing.
| If your dept/unit has not yet submitted a draft TESE |
If your dept/unit has submitted a draft TESE |
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| All Departments/Units | |
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The Teaching Effectiveness Standards and Evaluation (TESE) Guidelines provide an overview of the criteria for effective teaching and a template to guide teaching evaluation. We recommend you download this or make a copy to save to your Google Drive.
You can also refer to sample submission materials below. These resources include additional materials, such as a rubric to guide evaluation, and ways of tailoring expectations for faculty of varying position types, all part of the requirements for a department's TESE process.
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Blank form for department/program use: TESE worksheet
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"Social Science" Department completed sample worksheet
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"Social Science" Department completed sample guidelines
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SCU examples: see approved pilots and final TESEs on the TESE Tracker