Academic Affairs
Guidelines for Faculty Annual Reports
As a full-time member of the faculty, you are required to prepare a calendar year annual report. This report serves as input to the annual evaluation that will be prepared by your evaluator (faculty mentor for postdoctoral faculty; chair, director or dean for faculty appointed in a department, center/institute or college, respectively). Faculty evaluations are intended to be both formative (contributing to your ongoing professional development) and summative (contributing to contract renewal, promotion and salary adjustment decisions).
Your evaluator will integrate input from your annual report with their own professional observations of your work throughout the year. A faculty member who does not complete their annual report by the published deadline or any extensions granted for extenuating circumstances, will be assigned an overall score of 0 (not evaluated), unless evaluator observations over the course of the year indicate a score of 1 (failure to meet responsibilities) or 2 (needs improvement) are warranted. A faculty member receiving an overall score below 3 (including 0) will be ineligible for merit- or performance-based salary adjustments until the next Annual Performance Review cycle is concluded. A faculty member receiving an overall score of 1 will be ineligible for across-the-board salary adjustments until the next Annual Performance Review cycle is concluded.
Faculty reports include three content sections, each eligible for a category score. Complete all sections relevant to your appointment, workload, and prior evaluation expectations; sections outside these areas will not be scored. If unsure which sections apply, consult your supervisor. Each included section should provide a brief narrative summarizing your accomplishments for the current calendar year and outlining plans for the next. Aim for clarity and conciseness—approximately half a page per section unless otherwise directed. Guidance on the types of accomplishments and plans to include follows in the next section.
Faculty Annual Report Content Sections
Teaching
Provide a summary of your instructional and advising activities for the calendar year. Focus on for-credit courses unless directed otherwise, and highlight efforts to create an engaging learning environment, implement innovative pedagogy or assessments, and reflect on their effectiveness. Include significant contributions such as course design or redesign, initiatives supporting student success, and any internal grants or professional development undertaken to enhance teaching quality. Summarize student feedback where available and attach SETE evaluations and comments for all applicable courses.
Additionally, incorporate your advising and mentoring efforts. Discuss how you supported academic progress for advisees and provided professional development opportunities for mentees, such as guidance on conference presentations, creative works, or career planning. Include efforts to connect students with academic, psychosocial, and financial resources, as well as any professional development activities that strengthened your teaching, advising and mentoring skills.
Research/Creative Activities
Provide a summary of your scholarly and creative work for the year, along with plans for the upcoming year. Because expectations vary by discipline, consult your department chair or college promotion and tenure guidelines for examples of appropriate outputs and measures of impact.
Include any internal grants received and professional development activities that enhanced your research or creative skills. Document efforts to secure external funding for projects related to teaching, scholarship, service (e.g., conference support), outreach, or other initiatives. Note that any support mechanism restricted to University of Memphis faculty or employees should not be reported in this section but can be reported in the most appropriate other section (examples of internal support mechanisms include research grants from colleges or centers and Community Grants from the Division of Research and Innovation). You may also discuss any professional development activities you participated in to improve your skills in applying for external support.
Service
Provide a summary of your service contributions at the departmental, college, university, and professional levels. Include both assigned roles (e.g., committee membership) and voluntary activities (e.g., advising a student organization). Note any internal grants related to service initiatives. Report activities such as student recruitment, fundraising for academic programs, and outreach efforts that extend beyond the university community. Outreach should focus on audiences outside your research or creative discipline (e.g., a rotary club presentation), while discipline-specific engagements (e.g., professional conference presentations) belong in the research/creativity section. You may also include internal grants supporting outreach.