I thank the Voyager for giving us the opportunity to explain the collective bargaining impasse to students from the administration’s perspective.
Students have a stake in how this conflict resolves. The key problem that prompted the administration to declare impasse is the use of written narratives from teaching evaluations in personnel decisions.
In the current practice, supervisors have access to the numerical ratings (the dots students fill out on the rating form), but faculty may withhold students’ narrative comments from their supervisors so that the comments won’t be used in evaluating the professors’ performance.
United Faculty of Florida wishes to preserve the right of the faculty members to shield students’ written commentary. The administration disagrees for the following reasons: n Students deserve a voice.
In my role as a faculty supervisor, I have read thousands of student comments about teachers. As a teacher myself, I also experience feedback about my own performance from student evaluations.
The vast majority of students take the obligation seriously. Through the evaluation, students communicate with the professor and the professor’s supervisor their perspectives. They reinforce great performance and offer insights about aspects that could be improved.
Students are in a good position to help faculty figure out what worked and what didn’t in a given course. That voice should be honored. n Most faculty share their comments. The vast majority of faculty submit their written comments. In fact, last year in my college (College of Arts and Sciences) 97 percent of faculty submitted their narrative comments. Most faculty members understand that their supervisors use student narratives to look for patterns.
However, the faculty who do not share their written comments tend to have the lowest numerical ratings among all professors. The detail found in the narrative comments can help supervisors to identify problematic performance and help professors improve. n Student evaluations are not truly anonymous.
We know that the written comments come from a limited set of students who have shared a specific experience with a particular professor. Therefore, these comments are not anonymous in contrast to an unsigned letter slipped under the door of the professor’s supervisor.
We solicit student opinion because students have a unique perspective and can give a targeted appraisal of effectiveness in a given course. n Practice should be in sync with instructions.
The current instructions that come with the evaluation packets and should be read to students state: “The results from this assessment will be used in the evaluation of the instructor.”
The professor’s right to withhold student comments means that statement isn’t true in all cases.
Imagine what would happen to the credibility of the process if the instructions stated: “Be advised that your faculty member may choose to withhold your written feedback from his or her supervisor.”
How seriously would students take the exercise? We are all interested in delivering the best quality educational experience possible. Changing this practice contributes to that goal.
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