Project Overview

The University of Arkansas has launched the Performance Framework Project, a campus-wide effort to define, support, and recognize effective performance across faculty and staff roles. This work is intended to support professional growth, development, success, and clear communication through a more consistent and forward-looking performance frameworks.

About the Project

This initiative will result in university-wide performance frameworks for staff and faculty that:

  • Clarify expectations for different roles
  • Define what strong performance looks like in practice
  • Support more meaningful feedback and development
  • Improve consistency across units, including colleges, departments, and disciplines, while allowing for appropriate and necessary flexibility

Why does this matter? 

Performance practices vary significantly across campus units, including colleges, departments, and administrative units. While some variation is both appropriate and necessary to reflect differences and local contexts, the current level of inconsistency creates uneven experiences among faculty and among staff, and for both those conducting evaluations and those being evaluated. Greater consistency in processes and communication is needed to promote clarity, fairness, and transparency across the institution.

The Performance Framework Project is an opportunity to strengthen how performance conversations support growth, clarity, and alignment across the institution, while preserving the needed and necessary flexibility for different roles and contexts.

Benefits for Faculty

  • A performance framework informed by faculty input and peer institution practices, that is practical and meaningful

  • Greater clarity and stronger alignment between annual workload expectations and assessment efforts

  • More meaningful and actionable performance feedback that supports annual review outcomes

  • Clearer expectations and guidance for non‑tenure‑track faculty that supports career progression, advancement, and recognition across appointment types

  • Performance conversations that more effectively support ongoing professional growth, goal setting, and career development, including promotion and tenure expectations,

  • Support for faculty serving as peer reviewers involved in evaluation processes to strengthen fairness, consistency, and understanding of expectations and criteria

Benefits for Staff

  • Greater clarity regarding goals and expectations

  • Campus level competenicies that further define how work should be achieved

  • More meaningful performance conversations focused on growth and development  

  • Improved consistency across units, while allowing flexibility for different roles

  • Tools and resources designed to support productive conversations with supervisors

Benefits for Supervisors/Leaders

  • A framework to support clearer, more consistent performance conversations across teams

  • Improved alignment between individual goals, unit priorities, and institutional objectives

  • Resources and tools for leaders that support effective feedback, coaching, and development

  • Performance processes that are easier to understand, communicate, and apply

  • Resources and tools for leaders to support effective performance conversations, feedback, goal setting, and faculty development

Anticipated Timeline

Faculty Timeline

  1. January through March 2026: Project planning, data review, and benchmarking
  2. April through May 2026: Faculty interviews and focus groups
  3. June through December 2026: Design of the performance framework
  4. Early Spring 2027: Development of tools and resources and implementation planning

Staff Timeline

  1. January through April 2026: Project planning, data review, and benchmarking
  2. May through June 2026: Staff interviews and focus groups
  3. June through August 2026: Design of the performance framework
  4. August through September 2026: Development of performance framework training
  5. Fall 2026: Training and implementation readiness