News > September 13, 2007

By Caitlin Kenney | Editor in chief

Every class starts with a syllabus and ends with an evaluation, and the latter often influences the former. But professors aren’t the only ones who see evaluations and class content isn’t the only thing affected. In fact, course evaluations can play a huge role in the future of faculty at this university. “Tenure and promotion, as well as raises, are influenced by the quality of teaching,” Deborah Best, dean of the college, said. “Likewise, good teaching leads to good raises, tenure, promotions and recognition via teaching awards.”

Department chairs and reviewing bodies use the evaluations when considering whether to renew professor contracts.

“For those who are not tenured, they (the evaluations) are used in evaluating performance for reasons of reappointment,” Byron Wells, chair of the romance language department, said. “We really take the student and peer assessments seriously.”

Non-tenured faculty include assistant professors, visiting professors and lecturers.

“Teaching is their primary responsibility to the department, so evaluations play a very large part in their reappointments,” Wells said.

Faculty members who are on tenure tracks, for example associate and some full professors, are under two-year renewable appointments. Evaluations play a role in these appointments as well.

According to Wells, while evaluations are still important, there are other considerations involved in their reappointments, including their research and scholarship.

“They have to create a balance between effective teaching and a record of research and publication,” Wells said.

Perhaps more importantly for students, course evaluations can give faculty suggestions of how to improve classes and modifications are often made if evaluations overwhelmingly suggest changes.

“If a chair sees problems with a class, changes would be made by the department and faculty members,” Best said.

Department chairs might also suggest struggling professors work with excelling professors in their department to improve and perfect their methods. The Teaching and Learning Center is also a resource for professors working to improve teaching practices.

Students aren’t the only ones who evaluate professors. Departments also arrange peer reviews to assess teaching effectiveness and performance.

Randall Rogan, chair of the communications department, said that peer evaluations offer an important second angle on professors, since some students could be influenced by their course grades or the demanding nature of the coursework.

It is a university-wide practice that course evaluations are not distributed to professors until after final grades have been posted.

“No professor is to see the teaching evaluation information before his or her final course grades are turned in,” Best said.

According to Wells, this practice is to provide complete privacy for the students and to ensure that evaluations can not affect students’ grades in any way.

Course evaluation procedures vary by department, but the dean’s office requires that all departments and professors participate.

“Departments determine the best way to evaluate courses,” Best said. “Many use the standard course evaluation form that is online. Others develop their own that they think suits their pedagogy.”

The romance language department is one that has put all course evaluations online, however Wells still asks his students to fill out the forms during class time. “I find I get a better response rate if I take time out of class,” said Wells.

Rogan agrees, which is why all course evaluations in the communications department are done the old-fashioned way – with pen and paper.

The communications department was one of the first to go online, almost eight years ago, but a few years ago the department switched back to written evaluations.

“The response rates were lower than what we wanted online,” Rogan said. So, though online evaluations made less work for the department, written evaluations provided a better representation of the students as a whole.

“You didn’t get the average student’s response,” Rogan said, explaining that only the two extremes of the student spectrum took time to fill out evaluations – those who loved the class and those who hated it.

“We wanted a broader representation of the classes in response rates,” he said.

Wells said that in his experience students are usually fairly generous and kind in their evaluations, so negative reviews usually identify a real problem.

Though most students focus on the course, a small percentage can let the evaluations become personal, according to Rogan.

“The personal comments can be hurtful – those negative comments can really take a toll on a person,” Rogan said.

“Don’t just write something nasty – offer some comments that can improve the course.”