Registering for classes is often a guessing game.
As students log on to sign up for their spring semester courses this week, they won’t have much to work with. Aside from a vague course title, conversations with friends and frequent visits to RateMyProfessors.com, there is little information available to students about what they can reasonably expect to learn and what their professors are like.
When a three-credit course costs about $4,000 and students have to make important choices about their academic futures each semester, withholding information about professors seriously harms students. Academic environments should promote freedom of choice – but this virtue is ignored when GW keeps students in the dark.
An official review system that’s open to students can change that, and the groundwork is already in place. At the end of each semester, students fill out detailed reviews of professors – but once they put their evaluations into manila envelopes, most never see them again.
“Was your professor available to answers questions?” “How well did professors use technology?” “Do you think your critical thinking and writing skills have improved over the course of the semester?” The answers to these questions could inform prospective students if a class is worth taking.
But right now, most student responses are used for administrative purposes only, used in part for promotion and tenure decisions. Students, however, are shamefully out of the loop. With the administration’s increased concern with teaching and learning, GW should give students access to these details so that students don’t enter the classroom blind in the spring.
A publicly accessible collection of students’ end-of-semester professor reviews would give students insight into what many of their peers thought of the class or professor. Students already seek out these reviews, but are left to scour RateMyProfessors.com, often an unreliable collection of internet comments. The University has the chance to take control of these reviews and present them to students in a clear and helpful manner.
Some departments have already taken the initiative into their own hands. The computer science department, for example, has posted course evaluations from students online since 2003. The GW Law School similarly posts course reviews. But that’s not enough. The University has a responsibility to standardize student reviews across the board and make them available for every class.
There are myriad ways to make this information accessible. For example, departments that privately receive multiple choice reviews from students could publish the results at the end of the semester. Not to mention a representative selection of the qualitative, detailed testimonials linked to students’ average grades students achieved could be published.
At a University where nearly half of all courses are taught by part-time professors whose experience lies outside academia, it’s important that accountability measures are in place to make sure that our teachers can actually teach.
Economics and finance professors would tell you that consumers can only make good choices with all relevant information available. The same goes for students.
Student accessibility in teacher reviews is a debate many across higher education are already having. At the University of Minnesota, student leaders have pushed the issue for almost a decade. And there’s been movement at Columbia University, where the Senate approved a resolution to publish evaluations – provided that professors give their consent.
GW should follow Columbia’s example and take steps to promote openness – which will inform students and encourage faculty to perform well. Colleges and departments within GW should take steps to institute these systems. And the administration should make sure it implements this University-wide.
Already, we’ve seen other reassuring attempts across University departments to keep students in the know. Last week, the University demonstrated that they’re determined to work with students: Soon, they’ll begin publishing response and completion rates from Facilities Services, the department that is in charge of responding to FixIt requests.
Before this change, is was often unclear when or if Facilities Services would respond to a FixIt request. It could be one day, one week or longer.
That sense of uncertainty was unfair to students. But more importantly, with no way for students to keep track of progress, it’s much easier for the administration to sweep problems under the rug.
It’s great that the University has plans to be honest with students regarding housing concerns. But we hope to see similar moves in the area that matters most: academics.
