At eighty four years of age, I have survived good times and bad and have the scars to prove it. I raised two children to happy, productive adulthood and was married to the same loving woman for more than half a century before she was torn from my side by Parkinson's Disease. I worked as a day laborer, a janitor, a night watchman, a store clerk, a barber’s apprentice, an Army officer, a seventh-grade teacher, and, for forty-six years, a professor, teacher educator and author. Nevertheless, until I became Professor Emeritus and retired from the teaching battlefield, I was required to submit to anonymous evaluations of my "courses" by unripe, ignorant undergraduates who often were more interested in partying and getting licensed to teach than they were in learning anything about it. My doing well on these ratings was insufficient compensation for tolerating this nonsense to begin with. And since most professors quietly sufferi this demeaning nonsense I suspect they had somehow been previously neutered.
Making matters worse, at my university a disempowering ritual accompanied these evaluations. We professors were sternly instructed to distribute the evaluation forms and then leave the room. We were not permitted to touch the envelope containing the completed evaluations. The last student finishing was seal the envelope, sign it on the seal, and hand carry it to the department secretary, who was licensed to secure these evaluations.
This humiliation was accomplished under the pretense that these were "course" evaluations, not evaluation of the professor him or herself. I sincerely hope that this fooled no one. (If it did they obviously weren't smart enough to be professors.) Had someone asked me to evaluate my professors when I was in college, I would have thought they had taken leave of their senses. I knew, and I hope my classmates knew, that we were green kids in the presence of full-scale adults who had accomplished a great deal more than we had or, many cases, were likely to. It was the professors business to do the evaluating. It was our business to try to learn — or at the every least, pretend to.
Perhaps I knew my place better than many underclassmen. As a teenager I apprenticed in my dad’s barbershop, largely populated by tough, no-nonsense railroaders, coal miners and war veterans. I learned the hard way that I didn't know much and needed to keep my opinions to myself. I remember once voicing an opinion on an adult subject only to have a grizzled railroader tell me that I reminded him of the barber's cat. I naively asked what that meant. He replied, "Full of piss and wind." Everyone in the shop but me thought that was quite funny. After that lesson I kept my mouth shut.
Professors might be able to learn something useful from these so-called “course” evaluations. But only if they knew which students wrote them. One doesn’t want to take a class-cutting dullard’s comments seriously; but the opinion of accomplished students are another thing entirely. Sadly, though, administratively fostered student anonymity precluded professors from knowing who was saying what. It also taught students to hold their tongues unless they could totally avoid responsibility. Great training for future politicians, ambassadors and citizens of police states. Not so good for citizens said to be free.
Unsurprisingly, professors at my university were not afforded the commensurate privilege of evaluating their chairs, deans, provosts, or presidents. Moreover, we professors were expressly forbidden from initiating communication with anyone on the board of trustee's. This pertained despite the fact that mature, experienced professors with expert knowledge are far better qualified to evaluate college administrators than immature. inexperienced, often strikingly ignorant youngsters are their professors.
College administrators know full well that granting professors the power to evaluate them would result in the same disempowerment their present "course" evaluations visits on professors. Of course, these "leaders" are having none of that. What's sauce for the goose turns out, in this case, to be gall for the gander.
Significantly, student "course" evaluations are part of an emerging pattern of disempowerment that renders teachers at all levels more and more impotent. Yet, at the same time, teachers are being held more and more accountable for their students learning. Even when they don't control key variables that make learning possible and students are left almost entirely off the hook. Can you remember when learning was chiefly the responsibility of the learner?
Political correctness is making all of this even worse. Woke-ism, is the new doctrine that's turning many students into immature, half baked, self-righteous equivalents of Mao's Red Guards. Who, while privileged, are being taught to regard themselves as victims. Yes, these immature true believers are being urged on by fanatics among the faculty who incite them to insist on political correctness wherever they go and denounce every professor they deem to be a heretic. Meanwhile, political correctness is also turning administrators into academic Torquemadas. What a deadly combination. I'm familiar with one professor who was denounced by a Black female student who had attended only ⅓ of his classes. The Director entertained the denunciation, then summoned the professor. The Director freely acknowledged that the information the professor had presented was both accurate and subject appropriate. BUT, the Director added, since the professor was a white male, he needed to be more careful about which facts he presented. No wonder the morale of teachers and professors is as low as it has been in my lifetime.
Academic freedom would greatly increase if students were firmly put back in their place instead of treating them as equals. They learn, the faculty teaches. Intellectually they are barely pubescent. They are the intellectual equivalent of the barber's cat. Full-fledged adults placing them on a par with faculty is patently ridiculous. AND, if there are to be faculty evaluations, there surely must be evaluations of college administrators by the faculty. Moreover, student "course" evaluations of the professoriate must be signed by students just as classroom educators put their name on every grade.
Don't hold your breath waiting for any of these obviously necessary innovations,though. The Red Guards of political correctness are already within the walls and it will take much courage and effort to bring them under control. Failing that, though, will result in even more damage to the value of college education. Something academics can ill-afford.
To examine these and similar issues further, see articles at www.newfoundations.com
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