A group of eight Ball State University professors have essentially taken away students' ability to effectively evaluate all faculty.
This group, the Teaching Evaluation Committee, is a subdivision of Faculty Council within University Senate, and in November made a decision that rendered a year's worth of work by many students completely irrelevant.
That decision was to kill SR-03-08, a Senate Resolution from the Student Government Association that would require all faculty members to have each class evaluated every semester.
This decision wasn't splashed across the Daily News and wasn't recognized by anyone outside of that committee until last week because a report discussing the decision wasn't released yet.
The resolution was something Campus Alliance, the SGA slate on which I served as president, heavily stressed during its term. The change received many praises and support among students and administrators, including President Jo Ann Gora and Provost Terry King, and passed SGA unanimously. It is the same policy many universities, such as Old Dominion and Kansas State universities, already follow.
According to the Ball State Faculty Handbook, "Evaluation of teaching plays a primary role in providing students with the best possible educational experience and in allowing faculty to develop to their full potential as teachers."
In this way, evaluations benefit both students and faculty.
According to an article published in Research in Higher Education, negative evaluations often cause professors to adjust teaching styles, which result in higher ratings.
The handbook goes on to say, "In addition to its primary role in improving teaching, evaluation of teaching plays a role in personnel decisions such as promotion, tenure, and merit pay."
Lastly, evaluations are used for research about the relationship between students and professors as well as students and classes.
In a nutshell, evaluations benefit the university in many ways - the more conducted, the better.
The current frequency of evaluations varies between departments, but most follow the guidelines set forth in the handbook, which states "ratings shall be done in at least one class per year. In appropriate circumstances, the College Dean may waive this requirement."
According to a TEC report, the committee doesn't support SR-03-08 because "we believe the current policy of one course per year (minimum) is adequate until there is consistency across campus in evaluation."
The committee failed to recognize the resolution would create consistency in evaluations.
The TEC went on to recommend "the minimum stay as is, with each department setting their own requirements," stepping farther away from a consistent standard.
The real reason the TEC is so against this resolution: The faculty has something to lose if every class is evaluated. Under the current policy, a faculty member teaching several large lectures and one small class is able to have only the smaller class evaluate the faculty member. The opinion of the minority of a faculty member's students would represent the whole.
The TEC didn't stop at blocking the resolution. It went on to propose "instituting a policy where faculty has the ability to select one class they do NOT want to have evaluated... in order to protect a faculty member in departments where all courses need to be evaluated."
If the committee's proposed policy were enacted, a faculty member could have several small classes with one large lecture and be able to prevent the lecture from evaluating the faculty member, silencing the voice of the majority again.
Despite statistics from University Computing Services that response rates for online evaluations tend to be lower than evaluations taken in person, the TEC support a change to having evaluations online.
Campus Alliance also supported having online evaluations, but only if the change was paired with the policy to evaluate every class a professor teaches each semester.
Preventing a highly supported policy from being passed, then turning around and proposing more restrictions on teaching evaluation seems too drastic a move to protect inadequate professors from continuing to advance higher within the university.
Here's a thought: How about holding your colleagues accountable?
In the more than two years I've spent serving the Ball State student body, I have never seen a group of faculty show such disdainful disrespect for students' opinions.
As a result, in what will likely be my last act as a member of the university governance system, I will personally move the SGA resolution to the floor of University Senate to be voted on. That meeting is at 3:15 p.m. in the David Letterman Communication and Media Building Rm. 125, and is open to anyone.
I hope when I stand, I have the same support of the student body we did a year ago when Campus Alliance campaigned on this issue.
Don't let a group of eight professors silence your voice. It deserves to be heard.
Write to Frank at frhood@bsu.edu
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
