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 obviously green, relatively ignorant kids under the tutelage of full-scale adults who had accomplished and knew far more than we did. It was their job to do the evaluating, not ours.
Perhaps I knew my place better than most because of apprenticing in my Dad’s barbershop. It was in Altoona, Pennsylvania; then one of the world's largest railroad centers. Consequently the barbershop was heavily populated by no-nonsense railroaders who performed dangerous, complicated, and highly skilled jobs for, what was then, the "Standard Railroad of the World." Many were also war veterans.
In this very adult world I soon learned to keep my opinions to myself. Early on I once chancing an opinion only to have a case-hardened customer remark that I reminded him of the barber's cat. When I asked what that meant, he said, "It means full of piss and wind." Everyone found that quite funny. Thereafter, I kept my opinions to myself.
Keeping the "Customer Satisfied
Now, let's consider these so-called "course" evaluations. In imposing them our Provost claimed they would more accurately appraise instructional quality. He stressed that previous administrations (dating back well over a century) had to rely on word of mouth. Now the university would get a much more accurate picture.
Faculty were also assured that "course" evaluation supported fairer tenure and promotion decisions. This, even though we were assured these were to evaluate courses, not professors.
"Course" evaluations had more to do with finance than anything else. When a school suffers a shortage of applicants and/or cash, which ours was at the time, management focuses on cash flow. And improving cash flow requires keeping the student "customers" satisfied. Of course, what often keeps these "customers" satisfied is a good grade for minimal effort. That action usually also boosts professor's "course" evaluation scores.
Across the centuries, higher ed administrators did not invite, much less require, students to take the measure of their betters. After all, at their incomplete stage of development, many, probably most, student's were, and still are, incapable of exercising mature, dispassionate judgement — especially if they've earned a bad grade.
Anonymous Denunciations
Our "course" evaluations were also required to be anonymous. Students were instructed not to sign their name. This shield of anonymity increased the probability they would use the evaluation for retributive denunciation. That, in turn, undermined essential rigor and indirectly encouraged students to down-grade professors who required hard work and a willingness to experience the discomfort of serious thought.
Plainly, students had no doubt who was grading them. We professors could only guess. We might have learned something useful had we been able to identify respondents. But given student anonymity, one could never know if a bad rating was fair, or mere retribution from some class-cutting dullard who truly merited his or her "F."
I scored well on these evaluations, evidence my promotion to full professor. But I still found the process humiliating and degrading. My colleagues generally bore this disempowerment, in silence. I imagine most did that to avoid displeasing the authorities.
A degrading finale topped all of this off. On the last day of class professors were instructed to make no comments about the process. They were ti have a student distribute the evaluations, then leave the room. Completed evaluations were to be deposited on the front desk, collected by the last student finishing, sealed in a provided envelope, and delivered to the department secretary. —only she had the necessary security clearance. Professors were never to touch them once they had been completed.
Excommunication
The collected evaluations were perused by an assortment of administrators, then returned to the examinee. He or she were expected to review them, benefit from the feedback, bind them for future reference, and record summative statistics on a spreadsheet. These statistics proved critical in any future tenure or promotion hearing. Denial of tenure was the academic equivalent of excommunication.
A "Tenure and Promotion Committee" conducted the inquisition that determined the candidate's fate. Chaired by the Provost, this committee was staffed by highly domesticated faculty appointed by the Committee on Committees. If a candidate for tenure or promotion had weak statistics, or if the Provost Jesuitically hinted his disapproval, the candidacy was doomed. Naturally the professor be examined was not permitted to appear at his or her own inquisition. Representation was provided by the Department Chair.
I once asked the Chair of the Committee on Committees why I was never selected to serve on this committee. That would have helped with my promotion. But explained that I was "insufficiently attentive to administrative intent." She, by the way, was exquisitely sensitive to it and not long after became Dean of Arts and Sciences.
Of course professors are typically denied any opportunity to evaluate their chairs, deans, provost, or president. I once asked our Dean, a lady with a a remarkable sensitivity to administrative intent, when 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, sometimes appallingly ignorant, youngsters were their professors. Looking shocked and shifty, she muttered something about this being decided at some future date. That, of course, turned out to be never.
Why The Worm Can't Turn?
College administrators know perfectly well that granting professors the power to evaluate them would result in their disempowerment, just as "course" evaluations disempower faculty. So in this case, what's sauce for the goose is, indeed, gall for the gander.
At our college we professors were also expressly forbidden from initiating any communications with members of the board of trustees. That meant, we were expressly forbidden any opportunity to evaluate administrator performance with their bosses. (You know, the ones who may be ignoramuses, but still are big givers.)
"Course" evaluations are part of the general disempowerment of teachers at all levels that, these days, is rendering them more and more impotent and less and less satisfied. Here's another instance: learning used to primarily be a student responsibility. Nowadays it's the teacher's. In the School District of Philadelphia, for instance, teachers are held accountable for learning that fails to take place when a student doesn't even attend class, If a chronically truant fails to perform on standardized tests, the teacher still is blamed. After all, it's his or her job to "leave no child behind." Remember that humbug?
