By Justin Muszynski
We all take them at the end of every semester, but how many of us actually know what happens to those student opinion surveys after we hand them in and they are delivered to the department?
Some may assume they get read by the professor and administrators but others get the impression that they never see the light of day again. What students might not know is how much these come into play throughout a professor’s career. What do administrators have to say to the idea that student opinion surveys are meaningless?
Carl Lovitt, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, says the idea that student evaluations aren’t read by anyone is a complete fallacy.
“Student evaluations for all tenure-track faculty are read annually by department chairs, Department Evaluation Committees, Deans, and by me,” said Lovitt. “Department chairs read student evaluations for all part-time faculty and they read the evaluations for tenured faculty members every year. Any concerns about the quality of teaching are communicated to the faculty member.”
Siamack Shojai, the Dean of the School of Business, says students need to take the surveys seriously because it can impact a professor’s career greatly. When a professor goes up for tenure, or any promotion, they have to turn in all of the evaluations that they have received. Should there be a significant amount of negative feedback, they will have to answer for that. Shojai also says that it is possible, should a professor receive continual undesirable assessments, they could lose their job, even if they are tenured.
Jason Jones, President of the CCSU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, says it is true that a professor could be terminated should their students year after year say they are not doing their job, however it’s a very unlikely scenario.
“I would be fascinated to see a course of events that would lead to that,” said Jones. “The evaluations wouldn’t just need to be critical; they would need to rise to the level of professional misconduct. Hypothetically it might be possible but it would take a very long chain of events.”
Shojai also says that long before administrators would even consider firing a professor because of students’ complaints, the concerns would be voiced to the professor and they would have a chance to improve whichever area of teaching that was in question. The department chair giving a faculty member their opinion is done on a regular basis.
“Department chairs study every evaluation every semester and in many instances they get in contact with a faculty member if there are issues or challenges and they will discuss exploring opportunities to improve the teaching methods,” said Shojai.
Jones sees some flaws in the evaluation process that he believes affect the quality of feedback a professor might get.
“They tend to be done at the worst possible time,” said Jones. “Students are stressed about getting all of their work done and what their final grade will be and it’s too late for the information to be useful.”
He also says the surveys can sometimes act as just another ratemyprofessor.com where students commend their favorite professors and badger the ones they don’t like.
“Students also sometimes use the evaluations as a chance to provide praise to professors they like and revenge on ones they don’t,” explained Jones. “What’s interesting is that there have been studies done that show the numbers with ratemyprofessor.com loosely correlate with those that some schools publish as a matter of course.”
Shojai tell students that if a professor isn’t doing their job to go immediately to the professor or the department chair but don’t wait until the end of the semester to give your feedback.
“If you wait until the end, there’s not much anyone can do about your situation,” said Shojai. “But if two weeks into the semester you voice your concerns, it will be much easier to take care of it there and then if there’s a problem.”