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June 29, 2005
Help!
Call 911; my sensibilities are deeply injured. Apparently at Ward Churchill's institution, students GRADE their professors? Dude, WTF? How badly has the concept of grading gone amok? And, please, can someone tell me whether there's a problem with grade inflation for the professors as well as for the students? And one final question: HOW DID THESE "GRADES" GET INTO THE MEDIA?
Posted by senioritis at June 29, 2005 07:32 AM
Comments
They appear to be public information, released by the school's Office of Planning, Budget, and Analysis. Their guide for interpreting the results says,
Information from Faculty Course Questionnaires (FCQs) is used by
- students for selecting courses and instructors,
- instructors for improving their teaching, and
deans and department chairs for promotion,- tenure, salary, and course-assignment decisions.
Yes, the results really are used for these things!
Scary...
Posted by: Jon at June 29, 2005 08:37 AM
Out of control. FERPA protects students' privacy rights; their grades aren't public record. I'm very surprised that the faculty are allowing their "grades" to be publicized. As for their course evals counting in tenure, hiring: yeah, that's everywhere. No objections from me, as long as that's not the only way teaching is assessed. But public? For the Rocky Mountain News to fold into the complex Churchill case? It's just wrong, wrong, wrong.
Posted by: senioritis at June 29, 2005 11:33 AM
I'm intrigued by the way the student interviewed contextualized the "grades"--controversy leads to low grades.
Posted by: susansinclair at June 29, 2005 01:58 PM