Campus Procedures and Process for Determining Merit Awards

General Guidelines

1. Forms, deadlines, and instructions for submitting a merit file will be made available by the Dean and the FC Chair when Merit Awards are to be made.
2. The Faculty Merit Review Committee consists of all faculty applying for merit in a given review period.
3. Merit is awarded in two distinct categories: 
   1. Teaching and Service Merit
   2. Research/ Creative Activity Merit
4. Faculty can apply for merit consideration in either category or both categories.
5. The Faculty Merit Review Committee when considering candidates only seek to review completed ballots and an abbreviated CV.  An abbreviated CV contains only the accomplishments for the time period under review.  Any CV submitted as part of the merit process with accomplishments achieved outside the review period will not be considered for merit.
6. Merit files and materials submitted after established deadlines will not be considered.
7. Members of the Faculty Merit Review Committee cannot vote or rank themselves when reviewing files.  They should only vote /rank the other applicants.

Ashtabula Campus Merit Review Process:

1. The Dean in conjunction to with FC Chair notify the tenure, tenure-track faculty of the merit process, provides instructions, forms, and deadlines.
2. Files will be submitted to Dean’s Office by 5:00pm on the established submission deadline.
3. The Dean will provide the Faculty Merit Review Committee electronic and hard copies access to merit files within three business days of the submission deadline.
4. The FC will construct and provide an electronic ballot form for everyone to use to rank candidates.
5. Each member of the Faculty Merit Review Committee will review and rank each file in the merit categories in which they also submitted a file.  In ranking the files, faculty must list reasoning behind rank (strengths and weaknesses of files).
6. Faculty will NOT vote for themselves.
7. Electronic Ballots must be received by the established deadline.
8. All those who submit files must be involved in the voting.
9. If someone does not vote/ rank the files, their file will be removed from consideration.
10. The Deans office will compile casted ballots such that:
    1. Track who voted
    2. Separate comments and ranking by assigning random letters to each faculty
    3. Create a ranking order (without names attached).
    4. Compile Comments for review (without names attached)
11. Committee will meet to review rankings with comments attached (without names attached) and recommend preliminary monetary figures to the Dean.
12. After the committee meets they will send a summary letter of merit recommendation to Dean.
13. The Dean will make a preliminary determination of the Merit Awards and notify individual faculty members, the Council, and the Provost. Faculty members who wish to know their discrete ranking in each category by the Dean or by Council may request that information from the Dean.
14. A faculty member shall have the right to request reconsideration of the preliminary determination. The request for reconsideration shall be made, in writing, to the Dean for transmission to the Council for its review and recommendation on reconsideration. A necessary condition for Council review of a written request for reconsideration is that the request must give an informed and substantive reason for reconsidering the preliminary determination. An informed reason is based upon at least as much information as was available to Council. Thus, the expectation is that any faculty member requesting reconsideration will have reviewed the documentation submitted by all applicants for Merit Awards who would be affected by a revision of the preliminary determination. A substantive reason discloses a significant misinterpretation or a real and verifiable error in the preliminary determination. Thus, disappointment about the size of an award alone is insufficient reason to request reconsideration. Those appealing may request to present their reconsideration rationale to the Council.   After evaluating all requests for reconsideration, the Council will make a final recommendation to the Dean.
15. The Dean will make a final determination of Faculty Excellence Awards and notify affected individual faculty, the Council, and the Provost.