End of academic review period sparks conversations about streamlining paperwork

We are now just one week from of the end of the current review period for UC ANR academics. I know many of you have confirmed your intended salary advancement action for the review period. Whether you intend to seek a salary advancement action or prepare an annual evaluation, you have likely noticed that a few of our trainings on those topics have been postponed.

The postponement is due to efforts underway to make document preparation for all actions less time consuming, regardless of your planned action. At the request of AVP Powers, the Academic Assembly Council Personnel Committee and the 2019 Peer Review Committee are working together to develop recommendations to greatly streamline and improve those processes. Following AVP Powers' review and decision, training dates will be established. All trainings will to take place this fall.

Many of our UC ANR academics say report that they spend over a month preparing their merit and promotion documents and that the current process can be quite stressful. Annual evaluation documents take almost as much time to compile. While the merit and promotion process is important, what's most important is that one's document provide the opportunity for an academic to share their accomplishments and contributions to UC ANR as well as their community, and their profession. The review process does is supposed to help evaluate one's work; it's not supposed to get in the way of an academic actually conducting their work. Similarly, the purpose of the annual evaluation is to guide activities towards achievement of an academic's stated goals without taking so much time that the process itself impedes success.

As we finalize enhancements to the document preparation guidelines that reflect the needed improvements recommended by many of you, I want to share the results of the 2019 merit and promotion review process. Case numbers vary from year to year, as do success rates; however, what we strive to ensure does not change is the rigor and high expectations we ask of our UC ANR academics. Because of this, our UC ANR academics not only progress well throughout their career but they are highly respected throughout the nation and in many sectors.

The message I want to leave you with is that we are committed to ensuring that paperwork and evaluations do not get in the way of the important work research and extension you do. The mission we serve and the work you contribute toward that is where we need to focus our energy. As always, many thanks for all the great work you do!

The following table provides a comparison of Program Review Outcomes over the past 5 years.

Glenda Humiston
Vice President

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This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.

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