YOU CAN'T believe everything you read.
In last week's Cavalier Daily, two pieces on the Opinion page cited the lack of an evaluation system that students can refer to when choosing classes. This much is true. Calling for student action on the issue, however, is a moot point.
The Academic Affairs Committee, Arts and Sciences Council, the Engineering School Council and the Presidential Roundtable of Student Council have worked aggressively on this matter since the beginning of the school year. These students are, in fact, coordinating efforts to gather and publish course evaluations.
The project began with students on the Arts and Sciences Council. Members of that committee began seeking cooperation from faculty and administrators over a year ago. Their goal was to compile a useful listing of evaluations. They decided to start with classes in the Economics Department in order to get critiques of commonly taken courses available to students.
The task proved to be monumental. Think about the evaluations process itself - we are handed scantron forms and asked to fill in about 20 of those infamous little bubbles on the sheet. When the academic departments handed the "evaluations" over, they were in fact, just stacks of scantron forms.
The process of translating all of the pencil marks into readable data was overwhelmingly time-consuming and complicated. Additionally, it became apparent that such a process proved completely useless to students because by the time the information was available, it would be far too late in the year to make registration any easier. The students working on this project realized that in order to have an effective course evaluations system, the whole process would have to be restructured.
This is exactly what they have set out to do. These groups have come together to take on the project and worked diligently this year on behalf of the student body. To gain further support for their ideas, they are writing letters to academic deans and drafting legislation for the Representative Body to consider. Look for these developments this week and in the near future.
These students have clear goals set for an improved system. A new course evaluations publication must be unbiased and available to students in a timely manner.
The evaluation systems at peer institutions such as Harvard and U.C.-Berkeley provide a useful example to follow. A booklet published by Harvard each semester lists every course and statistics derived from student feedback. Rating objective factors like work load, subject matter and competitiveness, students can obtain useful information about a class before signing up for it. The Harvard publication also has a space for "additional comments," so that any student can provide input on anything.
Furthermore, these students believe that submitting evaluations over the Web provides countless benefits for both students and academic departments alike. They hope to work with administrators from ITC to make this dream a reality. Currently, the Darden School employs such a system and the Engineering School is well on its way; clearly, the College can provide useful course information to its students.
Unfortunately, herein lies the problem. The students working on this project have faced the most adversity from academic department chairs seeking to protect their professors from glib student feedback.
So, instead of trying to get students to tackle this problem, encourage the efforts being made by those already involved. We are about to go through the evaluations process once again; this time, make it clear to your professors that you want it changed. If you think students have a right to see this information, tell them that. Help them understand that course evaluations won't necessarily harm them. This is the action needed for better evaluation information to be made available.
These students are taking insight from previous attempts to publish course evaluations and doing the work needed to see this project through to completion. It's unfortunate that their efforts appear to have gone unnoticed thus far.
The good news is that it isn't too late. An improved system is on its way, thanks to the work being done. Let them know if you have any ideas or are willing to help out. If nothing else, let your professors know that you expect their cooperation. In the long run, it will serve everyone well.
And in the meantime, stay tuned; there will certainly be news on the developments as they occur.
(Katherine Martini's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. She is co-chair of the Student Council Housing Concerns Committee.)
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