I agree. Why are we doing this?

Mike Russell

On Thu, 3 Oct 2002, Katheryn Thompson wrote:

> I agree with Dr. Dumas. Our students should be in the position to rate the
> entire course. This might be especially important for students who struggle
> in the beginning, as they can better assess their own improvement as well
> as the instructor's willingness to work with them to help them rise to the
> level of competency in the course, etc.
>          I'm sure this early date was dictated by the wish to lighten the
> paperwork load at the end of the semester, but, like Dr. Dumas, I feel that
> it undermine's the intent and quality of the survey. I would vote for a
> later date.
>
> Dr. Katheryn A. Thompson
> Foreign Languages
>
>
>
> At 03:55 PM 10/2/2002 -0400, Dr. Joe Dumas wrote:
> >I just checked my mailbox and found my stack of "student rating of
> >faculty" forms for the Fall semester.  The attached memo from Dick
> >Gruetzemacher says that the deadline for returning the forms is October 31.
> >
> >Is anyone else bothered by the fact that this deadline is *much* earlier
> >than normal?  Once upon a time we did them right before Thanksgiving ...
> >certainly the deadline was no earlier than mid-November.  Now it has
> >been moved, arbitrarily it seems, two or three weeks earlier.  It is
> >possible to do the instructor evaluations well before midterm (this
> >week, even!), and it is mandatory that they do not cover the last five
> >weeks of the term.  This seems rather ridiculous to me if the purpose of
> >the instruments is to rate the performance of the instructor over the
> >bulk of the course.  (At other institutions when I was a student, the
> >evaluations were done either during the final exam period or at the last
> >class meeting so they truly covered the entire course.  I always thought
> >we did them too early as it was.)
> >
> >I would like to request that the Testing Office extend the deadline for
> >returning the student rating of faculty forms at least until the usual
> >time (the third week of November) so that the ratings will cover the
> >vast majority of the course and thus be more meaningful.
> >
> >Joe Dumas
>