Had I been told to evaluate my professors when I was an undergraduate, I would have thought someone had taken leave of their senses. We were green, relatively ignorant kids, under the tutelage of full-fledged adults who had accomplished far more than we had. Clearly, evaluation was their job!
The Barber's Cat
I had a sense of place better than most adolescents because of apprenticing in my Dad’s barbershop in Altoona, Pennsylvania — at the time America's largest railroad center. The barbershop was populated by no-nonsense railroaders who performed dangerous and highly skilled jobs for the P.R.R. The "Standard Railroad of the World." Many also were veterans of W.W.II and/or Korea.
In this world I soon learned to keep my opinions to myself. I once did chance an opinion, only to have a case-hardened customer remark that I reminded him of the barber's cat. "What's that?" I asked. He replied: "Full of piss and wind." Thereafter I kept my opinions to myself.
Now back to these so-called "course" evaluations. When our Provost imposed them, he claimed they would help "the administration" better measure course effectiveness. Previous administrations (dating back over a century) had never tried anything remotely like this. Perhaps they thought that students were incapable of delivering fair, mature, accurate appraisals — especially if they'd earned a bad grade.
The Provost comforted us by pointing out that these new "course" evaluations would also support fairer tenure and promotion decisions. This despite previously assured us that this process was solely meant to evaluate courses, not professors.
"Money Makes the World Go Around"
The introduction of "course" evaluations was connected to our collegiate financial crises. Like many other colleges at the time, we were experiencing a shortage of applicants. So management was increasingly focused on diminished cash flow.
They ultimately decided that improving cash flow required, among other things, keeping our present "customers" satisfied. Then they would continue to attend and pay tuition. Of course the most expeditious way to keep these "customers" satisfied was to give them better grades. In other words: encourage grade inflation. Of course that could never be openly encouraged. But by adopting so-called "course" evaluations, faculty would still cooperate. That was because grade inflation not only kept student in seats, but boosted coopted professor's "course" evaluation scores. Want "students" to rate you highly? Just give them better grades than they deserve.So grade inflation was a win-win for spooked school administrators as well as professors willing to trash standards to achieve better evaluations.
What was lost in this Devil's bargain was fairness. Fairness for students who were actually doing quality work, and fairness for professors who stuck to reasonable standards. And still another casualty was the value of the school's diplomas. They too sank lower, over time. Although that was less noticeable.
Anonymous Denunciation
Denunciations remain anonymous in tyrannies, and our "course" evaluations were similarly anonymous. Students were sternly instructed not to sign their names. And this anonymity encouraged students to down-grade professors who demanded diligence and the discomfort of serious thought.
Of course student knew who was grading them. But professors could only guess. Given their anonymity, one never knew if a bad evaluation was retribution from some class-cutting dullard or important information from a student whose opinion mattered.
A particularly humiliating finale topped off this neutering process. On the last day of class, we professors were instructed to make no comments whatsoever. We were to just distribute the evaluations, then leave the room. Students might or might now colluded once the professor was gone. When finished they were to place their completed evaluations on the front desk to be collected by the last student finishing. He or she then sealed them all in the provided envelope, and delivered the sealed packet to the department secretary. Professors were not to touch them until they were officially returned. Clearly, we weren't to be trusted.
Excommunication
The collected evaluations were perused by a succession of administrators; then ultimately returned to the examinee. We were to review them, benefit from the feedback, bind them for future reference, and record summative statistics on a spreadsheet. The later proved critical in any future tenure or promotion hearings. They were the equivalent of our professorial batting average.
A "Tenure and Promotion Committee" conducted the inquisition ultimately determining a candidate's fate. Chaired by the Provost, this committee was staffed by highly domesticated faculty, appointed by a "Committee on Committees." Should a candidate have weak statistics, or should the Provost jesuitically hint disapproval, his or her candidacy was doomed. The professor being examined was not permitted to appear at his or her own inquisition. Representation was provided by his or her Department Chair. This encouraged candor, and/or denunciations ,by committee members.
I once asked the Chair of the Committee on Committees why, in spite of my years of satisfactory service, I had never been selected to serve on this critical committee. She explained that I was considered to be "insufficiently attentive to administrative intent." This woman, by the way, was exquisitely sensitive to it. In consequence, she soon became our new Dean of Arts and Sciences.
Of course professors were denied any opportunity to evaluate their chair, their dean, the provost, or the president. I once asked our new Dean, the same lady with remarkable sensitivity to administrative intent, if faculty would be afforded the opportunity to grade her and her superiors? I stressed that professors were obviously better qualified to evaluate administrators than immature. inexperienced youngsters were their professors. Looking surprised, she muttered uncomfortably that this would be decided at some future date. That date, of course, turned out to be never.
Administrators know allowing professors to evaluate them will result in their disempowerment in the same way "course" evaluations disempower faculty. Moreover, at least at my college, professors were also expressly forbidden from initiating any communications with members of the board of trustees.
A Final Word
"Course" evaluations effectively disempower professors. They commonly are introduced during times of low enrollment to keep bodies in seats and help balance the budget. In the short run, this buys time. In the long run, it is the road to ruin.
How many institutions of higher education are doing this right now? Far, far too many. What will it yield? Inferior education and embarrassingly incompetent graduates. Is there any way to forestall it? Not really. The law of supply and demand is at work and the results are not happy ones.
