Student Council held its first meeting of the spring semester Tuesday to discuss student concerns, including issues with course evaluations and the hiring of a new provost.
Student Council President Jalen Ross, a fourth-year Engineering student, said Council would not forget the calamities of the fall, but looks forward in the coming months to discussing student concerns which received less attention last semester.
“[We] went through one of the most traumatic experiences of many of our lives last semester,” Ross said. “We have now rebooted.”
Council members discussed their opinions and concerns about course evaluations and possible improvements in how they are conducted.
Safety and Wellness Chair Rachel Murphy, a third-year College student, suggested making course evaluations part of a participation grade for students in all classes.
“For the most part, most Arts and Sciences classes have a participation component … [which] makes it a part of your grade, so you’re incentivized to do it,” she said.
Murphy was also concerned with the viability of encouraging tenured professors to make changes in their courses.
“I’ve got tenured professors … that do not care about changing their course,” she said. “Why should they?”
Education School Representative Emily Furnari, a graduate student, also said professors may not always be strongly motivated to look through evaluations and make changes to their teaching habits.
“The overarching problem is whether or not the instructor cares about changing [his or her] course,” she said. “Even with 500 reviews a professor could pick 10 of them.”
Furnari suggested develop a system which incentivizes professors to receive stronger evaluations.
“It has to do with the instructor caring and the institution rewarding instructors for caring,” she said.
Council also discussed the University’s search for a new provost. Current Provost John D. Simon was hired as Lehigh University’s next president and will leave at the end of the semester.
Ross said he has a chance to serve on a committee for choosing the new provost and that the University is considering candidates both within and beyond the University.
College Representative Klaus Dollhopf, a fifth-year College student, said he would prefer a candidate from a public school if the University decides on an outside hire.
“They would already know the structure,” he said. “You have to rely on public funding more so than private schools.”
Chief of Cabinet Carey Stewart, a third-year College student, said she would like to see a provost experienced in leadership but not too far removed from the everyday workings of the University.
She said the new provost should have a “closer understanding of what it’s like to be faculty, what it’s like to be a student and what it’s like to work in that relationship.”
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