Had I been required 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. Clearly, evaluation was the job of the professor, NOT us!
The Barber's Cat
Perhaps I had a sense of place better than most adolescents because of apprenticing in my Dad’s barbershop. It was in Altoona, Pennsylvania — then one of the largest railroad centers in the world. The barbershop was chiefly populated by no-nonsense, calloused men who made the Pennsylvania the "Standard Railroad of the World." Some were also battle hardened veterans of W.W. II and/or Korea. This was a tough environment for an unseasoned male adolescent.
I soon learned to keep my opinions to myself. Early on I once chanced a remark, only to have a case-hardened customer say I reminded him of the barber's cat: "Full of piss and wind." The shop filled with appreciative laughter. Thereafter, I kept my opinions to myself.
Now back to these so-called "course" evaluations. When our administration imposed them, they claimed they would help better measure course effectiveness. Previous administrations (dating back over a century) had never tried anything remotely like it. Perhaps these previous generations of administrators thought students were generally incapable of delivering fair, mature, accurate appraisals — especially if they'd just 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 assuring us that this process was solely meant to evaluate courses, not professors.
"Money Makes the World Go Around"
I think the introduction of these "course" evaluations was inspired by a collegiate financial crises. Like many colleges at that time, we were experiencing a shortage of applicants. So management was focused on the diminishing cash flow. And correcting that required, among other things, keeping our present "customers" satisfied.
The most expeditious way to achieve that was grade inflation. But that could never openly be encouraged. However, by adopting these so-called "course" evaluations, faculty would probably cooperate for their own reasons. Namely, that inflating grades boosted professor's "course" evaluation scores.
Want "students" to rate you highly? Give them better grades than they deserve. So grade inflation was a win-win for spooked school administrators as well as professors who now wanted good 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. They both got screwed. Still anothe casualty was the value of the school's diplomas. Although that was long term and less noticeable.
Anonymous Denunciation
"Course" evaluations were completly anonymous. Students were sternly instructed not to sign their names. This anonymity encouraged students to down-grade any professors who demanded diligence and the discomfort of serious thought.
And students knew who graded them. Professors could only guess. So none of ever knew if a bad evaluation was retribution from some class-cutting dullard, or an honest evaluation from a student whose opinion mattered.
A particularly humiliating finale topped off this process. On the last day of class, we professors were told to just distribute the evaluations, then leave the room. Students might, or might, not collude once the professor we were gone. Anyway, when finished students placed their completed evaluations on the front desk to be collected by the last student finishing. He or she then sealed them in the provided envelope, and delivered the sealed packet to the department secretary. Professors were not to touch them until they were officially returned to us some months later. Clearly, we weren't to be trusted.
Excommunication
The collected evaluations were perused by a succession of administrators, then, months later, returned to us. We were to review them, benefit from the feedback, bind them for future reference, and record summative statistics on a spreadsheet. Those statistics would prove critical in any future tenure or promotion hearings. They were the equivalent of our professorial batting average. Except hits can be reliably tabulated. They either are or they aren't. Our "hits" were recorded by dozens of self-interested umpires.
A "Tenure and Promotion Committee" conducted the inquisition ultimately determining a tenure or promotion candidate's fate. Chaired by the Provost, this committee was staffed by thoroughly house trained faculty, appointed by a similarly cooperative "Committee on Committees." 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 "insufficiently attentive to administrative intent." This woman, by the way, was exquisitely sensitive to it. In consequence, she soon became Dean of Arts and Sciences.
Anyway, this Committee on Committees was very powerful. They were, in effect, the Inquisitors. And the professor being examined was not even permitted to appear at his or her own inquisition. Representation was provided by their Department Chair who might or might not like the candidate. Should a candidate have weak statistics, or should the Provost jesuitically hint disapproval, the candidate's chances were doomed.
Predictably, 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 ever 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. 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.
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