Student Council unanimously passed a resolution last night recommending that five student questions written by Council be included within course evaluations and that students have access to the data produced as a result the questions.
Currently, students fill out course evaluations, but the results are usually kept within the departments and not revealed to students.
"Council has been working hard for the past few years in order to give the administration an idea of what students want to see on course evaluations," said College Rep. and bill co-sponsor Tanay Amin. "We are looking to institutionalize the process to give students access to student evaluations."
Council President Daisy Lundy said the resolution was the result of years of work.
"Student Council has done extensive research working with students and student groups to get to this point," she said. "Since we have formulated five specific questions, we would like to put these forward as coming from the student body. We want to be more informed about the classes we are taking."
According to the bill, students will strongly agree, agree, claim neutrality, disagree or strongly disagree with statements pertaining to their classes.
Students will be asked if the "lectures and assigned course work effectively communicated the subject matter of the course" and if "the amount of time required to succeed in the course was appropriate to the course's stated level of difficulty."
They will also be asked if the "course's goals and requirements were defined and adhered to by the professor" and if the "professor was approachable and made himself/herself available to students outside of the classroom."
Finally, students will indicate whether or not they would retrospectively take the course again.
Council Vice President for Administration Will Sowers expressed satisfaction with the resolution.
"After years of filling out seemingly useless course evaluations, students will soon have the opportunity to see the results of the evaluation and choose courses intelligently," he said.
Amin said the recommendation will go to the course evaluations committee in the office of the Provost.
"We hope that the administration will carry forth the spirit of the resolution," Amin said. "I am optimistic about this, and I am hoping that students will see course evaluations hopefully by spring semester next year"
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