Teaching Track Faculty in Computer Science

Many computer science departments have chosen to hire faculty to teach in teaching-track positions that parallel the standard tenure-track position, providing the possibility of promotion, longer-term contracts, and higher pay for excellence in teaching and service. This birds-of-a-feather is designed to gather educators, both experienced and new to teaching track positions, who are currently in such a position to share their experiences as members of the faculty of their departments and schools. This year, we plan on discussing the impacts of evaluations of teaching faculty. Student evaluations of teaching, which are known to be biased, are often weighted heavily in teaching faculty merit review, contract renewal, and the promotion process. Our discussion will encourage teaching faculty to share the extent to which student and other types of evaluations influence their career progression, how transparent expectations around evaluation outcomes are, and what they believe would be a true evaluation of teaching excellence.