Spring Break
SJSU hands out teacher evaluations
Jean Blomo
Daily Staff Writer
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What makes or breaks a successful semester depends not only on one's own discipline, but on the instructor as well, said Sara Yates, a junior majoring in English at San Jose State University.
"Instructors can make a huge difference - they can turn a boring course into an unforgettable one," said Yates.
The Tower List, a publication created in 1967 by SJSU's oldest academic fraternity, Tau Delta Phi, attempted to allow students to "secure the best possible education" by rating all instructors on campus.
The fraternity administered universitywide evaluations every one to two years of all instructors for more than three decades.
Students were asked 10 questions about their instructors and the results were printed in small booklets available for purchase.
Today, the Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness (SOTE) is administered to thousands of SJSU students at the end of every semester, but the results are anything but public.
"The SOTEs are the largest evaluation process on campus," said Steve Aquino, associate of the Institutional Studies Office.
Unlike the Tower List, Aquino said, the evaluations are considered confidential - viewed only by faculty members and the department chairs and committees that evaluate them.
The SOTE surveys play an integral part of every instructor's career, Aquino said, so the evaluations should be taken seriously by students.
"SOTEs really are used to help the instructor and administration - students shouldn't think it's something unimportant," Aquino said.
According to T.M. Norton, professor emeritus of political science and past member of the Academic Senate, the current SOTEs have the Tower List to thank for their development.
In 1999, Norton wrote in a short history of the SJSU Academic Senate that, "The Tower List was the first step in including student surveys in the retention, tenure and promotion process at SJSU."
The Academic Senate had begun discussions of student surveys at a meeting in 1971, when the policy recommendation outlined that the "department's evaluation must include information gathered ... regarding the faculty member's teaching effectiveness by his students."
Although intended to both evaluate teaching effectiveness and help instructors improve their teaching methods, Andrea Whittaker, chair of the Student Evaluation Review Board, said the evaluations "sometimes leave a bad taste in (instructors') mouths."
Whittaker said the evaluations have "high stakes" in the success of a faculty member.
"Some faculty members are overly concerned about students getting back at them for bad grades, especially faculty (who) teach large lecture classes," Whittaker said. "They feel the SOTEs do not help them."
The Tower List also had its fair share of controversy.
The seventh edition, published in 1977, included a detailed account of the obstacles the fraternity faced.
After "administrative harassment largely instigated" by Dr. R.P. Loomba, the introduction says, the Tower List was threatened with a libel suit after a less than stellar evaluation.
The Tower List continued until 2000, said current Tau Delta Phi member Mary Ellen Hernandez.
"The reason the Tower List was terminated was because of schoolwide budget cuts," Hernandez said. "The faculty was constantly changing and we didn't want to put out an incomplete list."
Hernandez also said the size of the fraternity - 15 people - was too small to take on the publication, which was "quite an endeavor."
Online resources such as RateMyProfessor.com have replaced the Tower List, Hernandez said.
Founded in 2002 by SJSU alumnus John Swapceinski, the Web site boasts 3 million ratings of more than 500,000 higher education instructors nationwide.
Some students such as Kristina Skinner, an undeclared freshman, feel there is a need for available resources on the quality of education by instructors.
"I base my class schedule around (RateMyProfessor.com)," Skinner said. But Skinner also said the results on the Web site could be skewed.
"If a person goes out of their way to go online to rate an (instructor), they'll probably rate them really well or really poorly," Skinner said. "The SOTEs seem more official, more reliable."
Swapceinski said he founded the site because of a bad experience with an instructor, and that information from RateMyProfessor.com "might have saved me from taking a class with a professor who graded unfairly and was downright nasty to her students. "
Swapceinski said RateMyProfessor.com includes more opinion-based evaluations, and that the SOTEs were better designed for evaluating faculty performance.
The accuracy of any type of student evaluation, Aquino said, relies on the students' ability to be honest and thorough.
Kyla Gleitsman, a senior majoring in art, said the SOTEs could possibly be just as biased. "The time I spend on a SOTE depends on the teacher," Gleitsman. "If they're average to good, I just mark the top marks. If they were bad, I take my time to fill in the written questions."
Two years ago, the SOTEs went through major changes, which, Whittaker said, were long overdue.
"It was appalling that the faculty were being compared to norms 10 to 11 years old," Whittaker said.
Changes were made mostly in the way the evaluations were interpreted by the department chair for instructors' retention, promotion and tenure procedures.
Selected SOTEs are then placed in the instructors' "personnel action file," and are used, along with other methods, in the evaluation of a faculty member, according to the minutes of an Academic Senate meeting in March 2003.
Written responses were added in 1983 after the Academic Senate found "written responses are often of considerable value for both the improvement of instruction and the retention, tenure, and promotion process."
The Tower List also encouraged improvement in education by providing a resource "for faculty members who wish to see themselves as students see them as a means of improving their teaching."
Whittaker and Aquino said they are always looking for ways to improve the administration of the evaluations and how they can be used to evaluate faculty members.
"We are now beginning to work on converting to online system," Aquino said.
With the evaluations online, Whittaker said, students could take the evaluations at any point during the semester, giving faculty members immediate feedback and time to make necessary changes.
Aquino said the Institutional Studies Office is considering offering material incentives, such as SJSU Gold Points to participants in the online surveys. Gold Points act like gift certificates for Spartan Shops.
Even though the evaluations might eventually be administered online, Aquino said the results would still remain unavailable to students.
"Some institutions share student surveys with the students, but SJSU considers them personal," Aquino said.
Swapceinski said, "It is unfortunate (SJSU does) not give students access to the data that is collected (by the SOTEs) each semester."
How then, as the Tower List attempted to do, can students chose the best instructors for their education?
The only feedback available to students other than rumors are Web sites such as RateMyProfessor.com, which, Swapceinski said, "is based on a limited response rate."
"It would take an organized effort to discuss making (the SOTEs) public," Aquino said. "Interest must come from students."
"You will have a faculty revolt," Whittaker said about the possibility of public access to the SOTEs.
Whittaker said the SOTEs were not designed as evaluations for student use. "Every assessment tool has its purpose - to use it for something other than its original purpose would mean the results are not necessarily relevant - the form would have to be different (for student use)," Whittaker said.
Access for students to a consistently accurate and fair evaluation of instructors at SJSU remains unfulfilled.
"The more information you have, the better you have control over your education," Aquino said.
Yates said, "I rely on recommendations and word of mouth to figure out which classes and instructors to take."
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