Students fight for say in professor evaluations

Patrick Murray Staff Writer

Professors endure a lot at Vassar to keep their jobs: they go through performance appraisals each year by their department and go under formal reviews for extension of contract every other year by their department, the Faculty Appointments and Salary Committee (FASC), and the Dean of the Faculty. They must not only demonstrate their teaching ability, but also their scholarly work and service to the College. Whether they keep their job and whether they receive tenure comes as a joint decision from their department, the Dean of Faculty, the President of the College, even professors from other colleges. However, the only influence students have on the decision comes in the form of neatly filled-in bubbles.

As the system stands right now, the only means for student feedback on teachers and courses comes in the form of Course Evaluation Questionnaires (CEQs) and teacher evaluations. However, only the teachers see the teacher evaluation sheets/ Thus, the only information passed on to the department, FASC, and the Dean of Faculty are the CEQs. The CEQs - bubble-sheets passed out at the end of each course - only provide numerical ratings for various aspects of the professor’s performance and do not allow students any detailed means of feedback.

Since teaching ability makes up the main factors with which the departments, FASC, and the Dean’s Office evaluate professors, student feedback is essential. No other universal means of evaluating a professor’s teaching ability exists, except for the numbers students bring back. Associate Dean of the Faculty Rob Suter said, “It’s not an adequate method. It’s a bad thing to have [CEQs] as the only means. We want to fill out the numbers; students should be involved in thinking what could be done.”

Students used to have more of a say in teacher evaluations when Vassar used Major Committee Reports. Each department had a group of majors that would send evaluations of professors and their courses to the Student Advisory Committee (SACET) on the Evaluation of Teaching, who would then pass the information on to FASC when a teacher came up for review.

However, the system provided minimal results; as VSA Academic Executive John Delap explained, “Many major committees were not reporting back at all, and very few reported data was useful.”

Furthermore, the forms only reported on a professor’s work in the classroom and did not cover their work advising students with outside work such as theses. The information that SACET did receive referred to irrelevant information, such as the professor’s personality. Delap said of the forms, “SACET sent letters to FASC, recommendations, and the letters were not taken seriously.”

In 2003, Delap approached the newly-appointed Dean of Faculty Ronald Sharp and expressed his qualms with the current system of Major Committee Reports. Sharp and Delap decided to abolish the Major Committee Reports and begin a year-long study that monitored the faculty evaluation processes of 23 different peer institutions. At the end of the year, Delap concluded, “The entire system needed to be overhauled. Students and faculty were not satisfied.”

The study had its effect. Last Tuesday, based on the results of the study and pressure from Delap, the Vassar Committee for Critical Policy (CCP), headed by Sharp and comprised of professors and students from all academic concentrations, created a task force to create a new, viable method for student evaluation of professors. Delap wants to focus on creating an “open-ended part” of evaluations where students can provide focused, detailed feedback on professor effectiveness.

However, following the abolishment of Major Committee Reports, students still have no means from the Dean of Faculty for providing free-form evaluations of professors and courses. Delap urged that if any students wish to provide feedback to, “Talk to chair of the department - that’s what chairs are there for.”

Delap hopes to institute a new method of student evaluation of professors by the end of the year. Right now, though, Delap stated, “I’m thrilled, delighted. After three years of me squawking about this, this is a big step.”