It is the responsibility of the Chair to assign CP/M scores, and to bring those recommendations,
with rationale, to the Dean. However, the CP/M policy calls for consultation with other members
of the department. It is best practice to involve a small committee in the evaluation process. Often
the Chair involves the Associate Chair(s) or Executive Committee; sometimes another faculty
member is elected to do this. One chair suggests that the committee should turn over with time, so
as many faculty members as possible gain an appreciation for the very difficult task of evaluating
their peers, especially given the zero-sum process and limited units available for distribution.

Be as transparent as possible regarding the process used for evaluation, and periodically invite
opportunities to discuss the process at the unit level, with the potential for revision. Units employ
many different strategies, which vary considerably in terms of actual process and criteria, and the
key is to get general buy-in from the individuals in your own unit.
In the Faculty of Business, faculty members are notified of rating (in person or via email), including
their final CPM rating as well as the rating (letter grade) they received in each of the categories
of research, teaching, and service. The criteria for ratings within each category are provided to
the faculty members so that they understand the basis of the ratings. Other departments include
a memo to faculty members that outlines the allocation process (along the lines of the answer to
question 1 for faculty members, above). In all cases, the notification of the probable CP/M score
comes with an invitation to discuss the score with the chair.
It is important that faculty members know how best to fill out the Record of Activities, so it is a
good idea to provide information to new faculty before January. One chair suggests, however,
to dissociate the “annual meeting” from the CP/M award notification timeline. They have found
that a good time for annual meetings, especially with newer faculty, is early in the new year (i.e.,
February), soon after the submission of the annual report (so minds are focused in this regard), and
well before the CP/M notification which is typically in May.

Assessment is difficult. The keys are to be transparent, act in good faith, and involve multiple
people in the decisions.
Many of the questions we get involve comparing people with very different teaching loads, or
different research expectations (e.g. someone with a research chair). Another issue is comparing
people at different career stages. Many chairs suggested using a rubric or grading system, for
example like the one used for NSERC research grants, as a way of focussing on the important
aspects of each category, and for setting the standards in your field before reading through the
Records of Activities.
An experienced chair pointed out that while it is easy to get caught up in a lot of detail during the
assessment, in the end the CP/M process is a fairly coarse grid. It is very important to consider
whether a final outcome of ‘below par’ really is sending the correct message, and if a very high
score is indeed justified. But the difference between 1, 1.25, and 1.5 can come about because of
many factors, sometimes within the control of the faculty member and sometimes because of the
performance of their colleagues.
Assessment of service may be the most difficult, as faculty members can provide different levels
of service to the department, to the university, to the local community, or to their discipline-specific
community nationally or internationally.

Transparency in the metrics used to evaluate all these aspects, and whether ‘service to discipline’ counts under ‘service’ or under ‘research’ is very important.
Clear and regular communication to your department is important.

Evaluating teaching for CP/M can be difficult, particularly since the scores from student surveys
should not be the primary method for assigning salary increases to faculty members (see Ryerson
ruling of 2018: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onla/doc/2018/2018canlii58446/2018canlii58446.
html).

Sabbatical is addressed in the Research Leaves policy (SPS C1 or C2), and Pregnancy & Parental
Leave is addressed in SPS C4 – there is an averaging process which includes the last 3 years of
CP/M scores, and some discretion of the faculty member in some cases. Extended medical leaves
are handled on a case-by-case basis, depending on the duration and severity, but some of the same
principles from those SPS policies are used as precedent. Chairs should discuss individual cases
with their Dean and/or the Provost’s office before making final recommendations to the Dean.