MCC Daily Tribune

President's Wednesday Message

At last week's Board of Trustees meeting, the Board approved a resolution calling on me "to establish a task force to make recommendations on the format for and scope of all College employee evaluations: faculty, classified and professional staff, non-contract administrators, and officers." The Board's goal is for the task force to recommend an evaluation structure that looks to MCC's accountability to our mission, our values, our students, and our wider community. This report is due to the Trustees by August 31, 2019 for review and consideration.

Because every employee at the College plays a role in achieving MCC's mission and strategic plan and in assuring the success of our students, the Board is interested in how the employee evaluation process--at every level--can be more formally connected to this role. The Trustees' expectation is that the task force report will provide insight and information through broad-based recommendations. The resolution recognizes the Board's policy and governance role, and also anticipates the likely need to negotiate the impact of some recommendations with our union partners should they be adopted.

The task force is asked to address how the following elements should be included in MCC employee evaluations:

self-evaluation by the employee;
input from the employee's direct supervisor(s)
as appropriate to the position, proportional and representative input from students, classified and professional staff, faculty, and administrators;
as appropriate to the position, proportional and representative input from external stakeholders;
as appropriate to the position, quantitative institutional effectiveness and student success metrics related to the employee's job description and scope of responsibility;
as appropriate to the position, qualitative responses related to service to the College and the wider community;
joint employee and supervisor(s) identification of the institutional and individual investment required to support the employee's continued development as it relates to the success of our students and the effective achievement of our College's mission;
as appropriate, opportunities for recognition for exemplary performance;
as necessary, clearly defined and articulated plans and timelines for improvement.

Given the scope of this work, my plan is to convene the task force as a whole periodically from November to August with most of the work being done in smaller work groups organized around each employee cohort: teaching faculty, non-teaching professional staff, civil service staff, administrators, and college officers (including the president). These work groups may, in turn, identify smaller subsets of employees for attention (e.g., department chairs), as well. Each work group will be asked to identify best and emerging practices in employee evaluation for that cohort and surface practices that could be recommended for MCC.

I have sent invitations to join the task force to the leaders of MCC's Shared Governance and Union Governance. In the spirit of the resolution, which articulates the Board's goal of "transparency, openness, and inclusiveness in College policy and governance," I would also like to invite you to participate.

If you are interested, please contact Sheila Strong (sstrong@monroecc.edu) by October 19.

Please share your thoughts on the blog.

Anne Kress
Office of the President
10/10/2018