Smiley faces and chili peppers may not be the most accurate way of determining the quality of a professor, but what they represent is not to be taken lightly.
We all know the value of asking around before we enroll in a professor’s class. We want professors who are caring and sympathetic, profs who challenge us, profs who are fair. It’s not that the majority of us want to get out of work completely, we simply want to enroll in classes where we have a fair shot of learning something interesting from a teacher who genuinely cares. What we don’t want are profs who ramble, Ph.D.s who toot their own horns and generally hold us captive for a few hours a week. We don’t want to sit through any classes with thoughts of gouging our eyes out or investing in a pair of earplugs. And we don’t want to have the overwhelming urge to move on with a C and forget everything we just learned.
The creators of www.ratemyprofessors.com saw a need, the need for students to share their impressions of professors – whether good or bad – so that future students don’t become victims of professors of ill repute. So they met the demand, creating a fun, open environment on the Web where anyone can rate their favorite (or less than favorite) profs. A total 447,626 rankings of 101,083 professors at 2,333 schools had been posted on the site as of Tuesday afternoon, creating an astounding database of information. At last check, 122 Pepperdine professors – from P.E. profs to the president himself — had been ranked by their students.
And while the idea is to be commended, the actual data gathered undoubtedly leaves much to be desired. Students who log on usually supply data only because they are either extraordinarily happy or upset with their professor, inappropriate comments are filtered only by others who alert the administrators to their presence, and the database is by no means complete, leaving students viewing the board still in the dark about some of the university’s professors.
But is there a better way to find out the quality of one’s future professor than www.ratemyprofessors.com? There is, but Pepperdine students remain without access to it. A more efficient way for students to gauge the quality of their professors would be for the university to disclose the results of the teacher evaluations we fill out in each class at the end of each semester. Public schools are required by law to release these evaluations, while private schools like Pepperdine are not.
The anonymous surveys, filled out by each and every one of us, gauge everything from the teacher’s methods and office hours to the usefulness of the course and the materials used. The evaluations, which are filled out without the professor in the room, facilitate complete honesty among the students. The blue sheets are then collected and reviewed by the appropriate division and the dean’s office to evaluate the effectiveness of the course and the professor, information which can lead to changes in the course and faculty hiring’s and firings. Professors, who receive the data after the semester is complete and grades are in, then use the data to adjust their teaching methods, homework and class structure.
But while they’re useful to the administration and the professors, the data could also be useful to students. Both the comments and the numerical values could inform us what (and who) we’re in for when we enroll in a class. And it can be more than simply looking for good, bad or easy professors. There may be students who learn from a more outgoing, interactive professor than from book learning, students who would benefit from information on such an evaluation to gauge a professor before they enroll. Releasing the data would also have the byproduct of keeping the administration accountable for the habitual bad professors we all complain about, professors who are rare at a private university like Pepperdine, but who we know still exist from experience.
The extra cost and effort to releasing the data would be minimal to the university because it is already compiled for official purposes. Posting it to a Web site or server, such as PepXpress, or simply making the data accessible in a central location would not be too much of an added burden, especially given the benefits of releasing the information. The added accountability would even be a bonus at a university that recently has made moves to become more open with the university community, including sharing financial information, to ensure the dialogue that creates a higher quality academic and social environment.
We understand that www.ratemyprofessors.com can be entertaining. But for real information about the professors we entrust with our $36,000 education, there is no better source than the semester teacher evaluations. We appreciate the university’s past efforts, and now ask for them to once again be generous with information and release professor evaluation information.
January 16, 2003