The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 16, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 20, 1980 Page: 4 of 16
sixteen pages : ill. ; page 20 x 14 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
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THRESHING-IT-OUT
Faculty urges careful
evaluations
To the editor:
Enclosed is a letter first printed
in the Thresher in 1977 from Prof.
Charles Stewart, then chairman of
the Committee on Under-
graduate Teaching. I believe it has
been printed annually in
the Thresher, and since it nicely
expresses the Committee's
sentiments, we ask that you print it
again this year.
" 'What is the point of teacher
evaluations? 1 criticize a professor
one semester and he is still doing
the same things the next semester.
Teachers don't seem to improve as
a result of the teacher evaluations,
so why should I waste my time with
them?'
"Since becoming chairman of the
committee which administers the
teacher evaluations, I have heard
objections like the above expressed
by quite a few students, and it has
become clear that many students
do not understand how the
evaluations are used or the impact
that they have upon this campus.
Let me try to make a fuller
explanation.
"The teaching evaluations
provide virtually the only
information availible about the
quality of a person's teaching. This
information plays an important
part in determining whether an
Assistant Professor is promoted or
given tenure. Low teaching ratings
can keep a person from being
promoted, and thus cost him his
job, while excellent teaching
ratings can save the job of a person
who might not otherwise be
promoted. The hand-written
portions of the teaching
evaluations of each person
considered for promotion are read
carefully by the Committee on
Undergraduate Teaching, which
prepares a summary of these
evaluations. These summaries,
along with the computer printouts
from the objective part of the
evaluation, form part of the
credentials examined by the
University Council in deciding on
promotion.
" 'That's all very fine,' you
say, 'but most professors already
have tenure, so the evaluations
don't matter to them.' Wrong
again. The amount of each
person's yearly salary increase can
be influenced by the quality of his
teaching evaluations. How much
influence this has varies from
department to department, but in
some cases it can play a major role.
Since faculty salaries at Rice are
low to begin with, and since
inflation makes it harder to live on
these salaries each year, the salary
increases are vital to many of us,
and several years of small increases
can be devastating.
"In addition to these financial
considerations, most teachers take
pride in doing their job well, and
get great satisfaction from having
this recognized by their students in
the form of good evaluations.
"Thus, it is important to most
faculty members to receive good
teaching evaluations. And this
means that the evaluation system is
important to the quality of the
education that you receive.
Remember that there are other
pressures on faculty members. We
know that we are evaluated on how
much research we produce—the
more we produce, the more likely
we are to be promoted or to receive
good salary increases. The more
time we spend on research, the
more we produce; and more time
on research means less time on
teaching and, therefore, poorer
courses for you. If the quality of our
teaching didn't make any
difference to us in practical terms,
there would be a great temptation to
spend nearly all of our time on
research, to the detriment of the
quality of the education that you
receive. The fact that teaching is
important in practical terms
minimizes the extent to which this
happens, and the student
evaluations provide the
mechanism by which the quality of
teaching is given its practical reward.
"Thus the great contribution of
teacher evaluations to the quality
of your education is not so much
that they tell individual teachers
what they are doing wrong, but
that the evaluations provide
incentive to the teachers to do the
best that they can.
"I should point out that, in
fact, the teaching evaluations
frequently do help individual
teachers to improve. I think that
most <j>f us can point to things that
we do in our teaching that were
first suggested by student
evaluations. Possibly the reason
that many of you haven't noticed
this is that, by the time you have a
particular teacher, he has already
made all the improvements that
can be made easily, and the faults
that he has left are ones which take
longer to correct. The most
dramatic improvements probably
take place in the first couple of
years of teaching.)
"The above is a somewhat
overcynical portrayal. There are
many professors at Rice who work
devotedly at their teaching simply
from love of the job and pride at
doing it well, and who would do
just as much even if it did them no
practical good (In fact, such people
are probably making a sacrifice,
since it is generally believed that,
although teaching counts toward
promotion and salary, research
counts a lot more). Such people
certainly deserve the reward of
thoughtful praise on their teaching
evaluations. However, most
cannot help but being influenced,
to at least some extent, by practical
considerations. This should seem
natural. How much less work
would you do in most of your
courses if they were not being
graded? Working harder is a
natural human behavior, and
however unlikely it may seem,
professors are human too.
"Thus, the evaluation system is
important to the quality of your
education. However, the success of
this system depends upon the
students being thoughtful and
conscientious in making the
evaluations. Some students do not
bother to fill out the evaluations.
Others treat them with frivolity or
vulgarity. To do that is to
disparage a system that is designed
for your benefit. The evaluations
are taken seriously by those who
read them. You should take them
seriously too."
Anne Schnoebelen
Chairman, Committee on
Undergraduate Teaching
MOB number causes
5-yard penalty
To the editor:
Last Saturday afternoon, an
unfortunate incident occured as a
result of the beloved Marching
Owl Band. Late in the fourth
quarter with the Owls deep in their
own territory, the offensive unit
was unable to hear the
quarterback's signals and received
a five-yard penalty because of the
MOB playing. A school band is
supposed to help their side, not
hinder it. A 5-yard penalty may not
have lost the game, but it certainly
did not help as we were only down
by seven at the time and could have
conceivably tied the score with a
successful drive. I would just like
to politely ask that the MOB
Director Ken Dye please pay a bit
more attention to future game
situations so this type of incident
will at least not happen again.
Thom Glidden
Baker '80
&
m
GO AHEAD — TAKE IT
the factory goofed!
An error in packaging caused these sets to contain a round
8 inch cake pan instead of a
square one as indicated on the
brochure, our retail outlets
will not accept these sets due
to this error, we are forced to
liquidate our supply, so, go
ahead— take it.
A $149.50 set
for $20
2 year guarantee
Guaranteed
microwave safe!
One of our vans will be parked at
the lot at the corner of Main St. and
University Blvd. across from the
Texas Commerce Medical Bank.
1 DAY ONLY
Fri., Nov. 21
between 7 am - 6 pm
The Rice Thresher, November 20, 1980, page 4
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Dees, Richard. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 16, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 20, 1980, newspaper, November 20, 1980; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245456/m1/4/: accessed July 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.