Any other College Profs Here? Warning: Rant ahead

[Zapped]

Allow me to ask the professors here...when it comes down to it, what is valued more by the university, being a good teacher or bringing in money, recognition, etc through grants, research, publishing, etc? Not that they are mutually exclusive, but I have always perceived (and very possibly incorrectly) that what really matters is the latter. Comments?

 

It depends on the university. At a large research graduate school, production of knowledge through research, and bringing money in through grants, etc., is a top priority. At a liberal arts college, the emphasis is on teaching and how much research (I'm using the term in its broadest sense) is expected varies. How much should be expected is a topic of debate. Generally speaking, if you go to a residential four-year private undergraduate college, you'll find the faculty have been selected and evaluated primarily on the basis of their teaching effectiveness. Where I teach (one of those four-year liberal arts schools) you must be a "strong" teacher to receive tenure and promotion.

 

The customer/provider analogy works only up to a certain point. One thing good teachers do is to push students beyond their self-perceived limitations, and that not infrequently means setting up a a series of learning activities that takes students outside their comfort zones and on occasion throws them into what a friend of mine calls "student crisis mode." When my students are confused, I tell them it's a sign I'm doing my job. "First I confuse you, then I help you pull yourself out of the confusion."

 

I remind myself that when I hire a personal trainer, it's not just to keep me company, it's to push me beyond what I think. I can do. I realized once that I was paying my trainer in part for those few minutes per session when I hated him. Of course, I also paid him to give me support and encouragement.

 

I also remind myself and my students that my true customers, so to speak, are not the nineteen year olds I'm interacting with today, but their adult selves 20 years or so from now. That's who I'm working for. And quite often we are grateful later in life for the teachers who kicked our asses when we complaint-filled adolescents.

 

This is not a defense of poor teaching, unfair tests, unreasonable expectations, etc., of course.

[+ FreshFluff]

Allow me to ask the professors here...when it comes down to it, what is valued more by the university, being a good teacher or bringing in money, recognition, etc through grants, research, publishing, etc? Not that they are mutually exclusive, but I have always perceived (and very possibly incorrectly) that what really matters is the latter. Comments?

 

Research, by far, at most research schools. However, the best researchers in my field are also outstanding teachers. And tenured faculty who get bad consistently bad ratings are psuhed into early retirement.

 

But I'm in a special situation wherein my teaching ratings matter a lot for next year.

 

As a student, I liked the professors who called on everyone in small seminars or randomly called on people in the larger classes. I found that it helped weed out the less serious students. I hated the classes where the professor just stood in front of the class lecturing the whole time without any element of class participation. I remember describing one such law school professor as soporific in an evaluation. Give me the Socratic method any day!

 

Students learn more and stay awake more when I ask them questions. Some sections are extremely quite, , and without cold calling, "discussion" sometimes means standing up there and waiting for 30 secs for someone to say something. Those 30 seconds feel like forever.

[+ Charlie]

I remember describing one such law school professor as soporific in an evaluation.

 

I had one graduate school professor who was so soporific he used to fall asleep during his own lectures. We were never quite sure of the appropriate way to deal with that occurrence.

[+ FreshFluff]

I had one graduate school professor who was so soporific he used to fall asleep during his own lectures. We were never quite sure of the appropriate way to deal with that occurrence.

 

Today, they'd take a picture and Tweet it and then play Candy Crush.

[daviddd49]

Allow me to ask the professors here...when it comes down to it, what is valued more by the university, being a good teacher or bringing in money, recognition, etc through grants, research, publishing, etc? Not that they are mutually exclusive, but I have always perceived (and very possibly incorrectly) that what really matters is the latter. Comments?

 

I am an Academic Dean in a medium-sized Private University. Among my specific duties is processing the annual evaluations of the professors on our faculty, and it is one of the things that I severely dislike about being in administration as opposed to full-time teaching. Oh, sure, I still teach, just not as much as I would like because I have so much to do as Dean. We utilize a dynamic matrix of Departmental Head, academic peer, advanced-student, and self-evaluations, all weighted on a case-by-case basis. The student reviews are very important because, in truth, they are the ones who see and experience their professors the most. Granted, they are often the least objective in their evaluations, and they may not have a good handle on what it is that makes for a useful evaluation, however we frequently learn a great deal from what they say ... and what they don't say ... about individual professors. In particular, the reviews that come from Departmental Majors rank as among the most important of the student evaluations: they have at least some proficiency in the subject matter AND they often have experience with the same professors over several different courses.

 

When I am evaluated by students I find that they are, usually, very fair in what they have to say. I tend to teach only graduate students these days, so the evaluations these people prepare really are helpful ... both to the administration and, frankly, to me personally.

 

Peer and Departmental Head reviews are sometime impacted by departmental politics or field rivalry, and so such factors also have to be taken into account when weighing their evaluations. Nevertheless, I find them especially helpful as part of the matrix of evaluations in identifiying the outliers -- those reviews that are too glowing, and those that are too dark. The truth is almost always somewhere between the extremes.

 

Far from dreading such evaluations being done if me, I look forward to them as opportunities for correction and redirection when and where needed. In other words, the good evaluations are those that do more than justify tenure or standing for pay increases; good evaluations are especially those that help the professors to identify and correct problems in their pedagogical stile or approach.

[+ WilliamM]

The student reviews are very important because, in truth, they are the ones who see and experience their professors the most. Granted, they are often the least objective in their evaluations, and they may not have a good handle on what it is that makes for a useful evaluation, however we frequently learn a great deal from what they say ... and what they don't say ... about individual professors. In particular, the reviews that come from Departmental Majors rank as among the most important of the student evaluations: they have at least some proficiency in the subject matter AND they often have experience with the same professors over several different courses.

 

When I am evaluated by students I find that they are, usually, very fair in what they have to say. I tend to teach only graduate students these days, so the evaluations these people prepare really are helpful ... both to the administration and, frankly, to me personally.

 

Again, I am retired, and only taking a course or two a semester. Student reviews of professors and courses are available on line with a user name and password. The reviews are extremely helpful. I am surprised at how consistent reviews are for professors who have taught for years, seldom varying very much from year to year. Seminar students tend to give higher evaluations than large lecture class students, which makes sense. Occasionally, I do select a course taught by a new professor.

 

I wish this information had been available when I was a college student and grad students in the 1960s. In those days, courses often lasted two semesters (fall and spring), so a mistake in course selection was a disaster!

[+ FreshFluff]

David, it sounds like you have a tough job. Grad students are notoriously fair and even positive in their evals.

 

 

I wish this information had been available when I was a college student and grad students in the 1960s. In those days, courses often lasted two semesters (fall and spring), so a mistake in course selection was a disaster!

 

At my uni, profs don't have to release their stats to students, and many don't. They're purely for the school

 

From what I understand, student evaluations started in the late 1960s. Students believed they should be able to evaluate professors, not just the other way around. At the time, many universities promised these evaluations would never be used for P&T, but that ended up happening.

[+ WilliamM]

At my uni, profs don't have to release their stats to students, and many don't. They're purely for the school

 

 

Several years ago a professor who was very highly regarded by students taking history courses (including me) was not granted tenure in the history department. Students realize that their evaluations are just a small part, or no part at all, of the tenure process. The incident led to several long articles in the student newspaper on the multiple factors that are involved in tenure. I understand that people who teach at liberals art colleges and universities are already aware, but, from the reaction, most students were not.

 

For the last few years, those tenure articles stand out in the student newspaper. I have a student friend (pre-med major) who was arrested in Occupy Wall Street along with several other students and a professor. There is now a civil case, so the articles keep coming on Occupy Wall Street. I am interested because my friend was the only student who gave interviews to the student newspaper under his own name. Less interesting, but covered extensively, is the U.S. News and World Report's annual ratings of universities and liberal arts colleges. Also, another big annual story is the salary increases for the president of the university.

[Guest]

Wait till you see the results of the physician "pay-based-on-patient-satisfaction" portion of ObamaCare kicks in.

 

It's interesting because, while doctors with poor ratings on patient satisfaction are often poor doctors, I often find that many doctors with very happy patients are often awful doctors as well. Doctors are entrusted to act honestly, but many patients want their doctors to lie and/or behave unethically in order to obtain privileges. I regularly get patients trying to get me to sign forms stating that unless they have someone to assist them, they would have to be in a nursing home, even though many or most of these patients are fully ambulatory. Another favorite is fully ambulatory patients asking me to sign forms to get disabled placards. Other than the doctor's own sense of ethics, there's little incentive for the doctor to behave in a truthful manner, since I've never heard of a doctor being disciplined for even very grossly exaggerating the patient's level of physical dysfunction. There's also very little dis-incentive for physicians who prescribe for any dose and quantity of narcotics the patient asks for, although on rare occasions if the patient dies or gets into serious trouble, and a family member complains, there is at least a small chance the offending physician will get into trouble.

As for "cold-calling" in the classroom, it depends a bit on the situation. If there is a previously-discussed announcement that a certain class will involve student discussion of topic X on such and such a date, then "cold calling" would seem appropriate. During my university, medical student, and residency years, I would expect questions under circumstances when it was clearly expected. If I was taking care of a patient who had a blood clot in his lungs, during rounds I would expect my professor to ask "What is your target PTT for this patient?" or even "What do national guidelines indicate as the recommended duration of anticoagulation for a patient with a first episode of venous thrombo-embolsim?". However, singling out a student out of the blue with an unanticipated question seems somewhat disrespectful. After all, most students are paying good money to attend university, and the professor is the one being paid. The professor is not the student's employer. And if my boss were to ask me at a staff meeting out of the blue "What's the USPSTF's screening recommendation for osteoporosis on an asymptomatic 60 year-old woman?", I would find the question disrespectful.

Professors need to evaluate their students, but it should be done fairly, even-handedly, and objectively, and it should not be done in a way which might embarrass the students in front of their peers. Student evaluations of professors are also important, although these evaluations must be taken into context as well. Professor tenure shouldn't be based solely on student satisfaction, since professors shouldn't be offering A's to everyone (which would certainly make most students very happy), just as a physician shouldn't "just sign" every form a patient presents to him, no matter how outlandish a lie signing such a form might entail. A professor whose students consistently rank him poorly, just as a physician whose patients consistently rank him poorly, is probably problematic. But just being rated highly doesn't mean the professional is doing a great job, either.

[+ FreshFluff]

As for "cold-calling" in the classroom, it depends a bit on the situation. If there is a previously-discussed announcement that a certain class will involve student discussion of topic X on such and such a date, then "cold calling" would seem appropriate. During my university, medical student, and residency years, I would expect questions under circumstances when it was clearly expected. If I was taking care of a patient who had a blood clot in his lungs, during rounds I would expect my professor to ask "What is your target PTT for this patient?" or even "What do national guidelines indicate as the recommended duration of anticoagulation for a patient with a first episode of venous thrombo-embolsim?". However, singling out a student out of the blue with an unanticipated question seems somewhat disrespectful. After all, most students are paying good money to attend university, and the professor is the one being paid. The professor is not the student's employer. And if my boss were to ask me at a staff meeting out of the blue "What's the USPSTF's screening recommendation for osteoporosis on an asymptomatic 60 year-old woman?", I would find the question disrespectful.

Professors need to evaluate their students, but it should be done fairly, even-handedly, and objectively, and it should not be done in a way which might embarrass the students in front of their peers. Student evaluations of professors are also important, although these evaluations must be taken into context as well. Professor tenure shouldn't be based solely on student satisfaction, since professors shouldn't be offering A's to everyone (which would certainly make most students very happy), just as a physician shouldn't "just sign" every form a patient presents to him, no matter how outlandish a lie signing such a form might entail. A professor whose students consistently rank him poorly, just as a physician whose patients consistently rank him poorly, is probably problematic. But just being rated highly doesn't mean the professional is doing a great job, either.

 

In most classes, any cold calling would be based on the assigned reading for that day. (The assigned reading is usually laid out in the schedule handed out during the first few classes.) The problem is that, even if wrong answers don't count against their grades, they just hate being wrong in front of their peers.

[+ FreshFluff]

OK, another rant about something that happened a year ago that still irritates me. (BTW, this year's students are excellent, so there hasn't been a repeat.)

 

Some idiot who never went to class kept Tweeting obnoxious things about me, using my full name on a public account. The only reason I knew about it is that he used the tag #[my last name] the first time. Someone searched my name on Twitter and told me. I have no idea if he ever knew I had read it.

 

The original Tweet was nothing. A few weeks later, he wrote that he wanted to throw up on my face. Then, at the end, he used my name in some stupid ditty involving a slang term for a blow job usually given by a gold digger/prostitute. And believe me, he said it in a vulgar and offensive way.

 

I thought about busting this guy, since he clearly violated the school's code. But I didn't do it for several reasons. But if he were to fight it, it's the kind of thing that might leak into the media, who love stories about social media. Also, his father is an alum and an influential lawyer. I was due for a review, so I didn't want to rock the boat.

 

It might be immature, but I sometimes think about getting revenge on him anonymously.

 

BTW, I don't mind if people make fun of me. That's part of being a semi-public figure. My TA made fun of my lisp in his social media account, and I saw it before I hired him. He had the decency not to use my name, so I didn't mind. Vulgar sex terms are a totally different issue though.