On January 9th, a new thread in a discussion forum entitled Want to build our morale? appeared on the Chronicle of Higher Education website.
For those of us that work at Parkland, you can access the paid edition of the Chronicle via the Parkland Library website by following this path (thanks to Librarian Sherry Cmiel):
Go to www.parkland.edu/library ---> click on "Articles and Databases" ----> Scroll down to the dropdown box that contains "Education" ---> Choose the Chronicle ---> Enter your Parkland Login and Password.
The creator of the thread began by saying:
"The thread on faculty morale committees prompted me to start this one. A common theme was that overworked faculty are asked to come up with proposals for improving morale that are then ignored by the very people who called for the committee. So let's take at a top-down approach on the off chance that a well-meaning president/chancellor/CAO is interested. Let's share our advice on improving faculty morale. If we’re lucky, someone who actually hires and evaluates upper administration may read our advice."
Over the next four days, some 48 suggestions were logged by participants. Most are very interesting and useful, some appear to be a bit idiosyncratic, and some reference situations that occur at a university versus a college.
Regardless, given our discussions at Parkland, I thought it an interesting topic for this week. What follows are the unedited suggestions, with the exception of the numbering scheme. It got off-track in the forum in several places (10a - 10d, 16 is missing, 20a, and 32a).
I'll present it without comment in favor of responding to your thoughts after reading this. I'm really looking forward to what I believe will be an interesting discussion. If it works out, I'm going to try to compile a corollary; a few observations from an administrative point of view for the following week.
The creator of the thread began by saying:
"The thread on faculty morale committees prompted me to start this one. A common theme was that overworked faculty are asked to come up with proposals for improving morale that are then ignored by the very people who called for the committee. So let's take at a top-down approach on the off chance that a well-meaning president/chancellor/CAO is interested. Let's share our advice on improving faculty morale. If we’re lucky, someone who actually hires and evaluates upper administration may read our advice."
Over the next four days, some 48 suggestions were logged by participants. Most are very interesting and useful, some appear to be a bit idiosyncratic, and some reference situations that occur at a university versus a college.
Regardless, given our discussions at Parkland, I thought it an interesting topic for this week. What follows are the unedited suggestions, with the exception of the numbering scheme. It got off-track in the forum in several places (10a - 10d, 16 is missing, 20a, and 32a).
I'll present it without comment in favor of responding to your thoughts after reading this. I'm really looking forward to what I believe will be an interesting discussion. If it works out, I'm going to try to compile a corollary; a few observations from an administrative point of view for the following week.
Without further 延遲:
1. Make the sacrifices you expect from us. If budgets are tight, take a hit. If your faculty make 70% of what their peers make, you should not be making more than 70% of what your peers make. If the library is cutting journals, don't get a new carpet. Don't use more space, staff, and other resources when you are asking others to make do with less. People will make huge sacrifices when they are part of a group that is working for something they value, but no one wants to be a chump.
2. Listen. Reward truth-telling, especially when it's not what you want to hear. All the committees and surveys are a waste of time and money if people know you ignore or punish those who disagree with you. It only takes one incident with one person to make people fear and distrust you. You simply can't be an effective leader if people are afraid to tell you bad news.
You lose power if you only get information from other administrators. Talk to people and ask them what makes your place special. Ask the old timers what has changed and stayed the same. Ask the folks who have been at a few places to compare. Find out who the best teachers, researchers, workhorses, faculty leaders, grant-getters, student leaders, etc. are and talk to them. Don't forget your part-timers, they may be the only instructors you see during the first years when students (and their parents) decide whether to stay.
Spend time with these people. Actual time. With your mouth closed. Don't talk over them, don't try to justify things, don't get defensive. Yes, you will hear some self-serving lies, whining, and crackpot ideas, but you will know what the concerns are and how many people share them. These things are important to know. It takes time, but so does reading an extra stack of abysmal freshman essays a week, adding 5 people to a full lab, picking up the service duties once handled by people who were replaced by part-timers.
Give people a way to give you information with complete anonymity. If you find that it is being used a lot, it's because people don't trust you. Fix that.
3. Empower people. If there's a policy or situation that reduces the quality of life for a lot of people, even if it's small, change it. When people see that their input causes change, they are happier. A forumite mentioned a package delivery issue that wasted faculty time and energy. Paying someone minimum wage to deliver packages for 4 hours a day would not only allow those faculty members to spend their time and energy on what they're hired to do, it would let them see that they had a voice in how their campus is run.
4. Never lie. One lie, and you lose credibility that is almost impossible to rebuild. If you don't know, tell us so. If you are going to do something we won't like, tell us that, explain why, and apologize. Just don't lie about it. The short-term gain is never worth the long-term cost.
Good people respond to genuine respect with respect. If they know you are listening and make decisions with the best interests of the institution in mind, they will support you, even when they don't get what they want.
1. Make the sacrifices you expect from us. If budgets are tight, take a hit. If your faculty make 70% of what their peers make, you should not be making more than 70% of what your peers make. If the library is cutting journals, don't get a new carpet. Don't use more space, staff, and other resources when you are asking others to make do with less. People will make huge sacrifices when they are part of a group that is working for something they value, but no one wants to be a chump.
2. Listen. Reward truth-telling, especially when it's not what you want to hear. All the committees and surveys are a waste of time and money if people know you ignore or punish those who disagree with you. It only takes one incident with one person to make people fear and distrust you. You simply can't be an effective leader if people are afraid to tell you bad news.
You lose power if you only get information from other administrators. Talk to people and ask them what makes your place special. Ask the old timers what has changed and stayed the same. Ask the folks who have been at a few places to compare. Find out who the best teachers, researchers, workhorses, faculty leaders, grant-getters, student leaders, etc. are and talk to them. Don't forget your part-timers, they may be the only instructors you see during the first years when students (and their parents) decide whether to stay.
Spend time with these people. Actual time. With your mouth closed. Don't talk over them, don't try to justify things, don't get defensive. Yes, you will hear some self-serving lies, whining, and crackpot ideas, but you will know what the concerns are and how many people share them. These things are important to know. It takes time, but so does reading an extra stack of abysmal freshman essays a week, adding 5 people to a full lab, picking up the service duties once handled by people who were replaced by part-timers.
Give people a way to give you information with complete anonymity. If you find that it is being used a lot, it's because people don't trust you. Fix that.
3. Empower people. If there's a policy or situation that reduces the quality of life for a lot of people, even if it's small, change it. When people see that their input causes change, they are happier. A forumite mentioned a package delivery issue that wasted faculty time and energy. Paying someone minimum wage to deliver packages for 4 hours a day would not only allow those faculty members to spend their time and energy on what they're hired to do, it would let them see that they had a voice in how their campus is run.
4. Never lie. One lie, and you lose credibility that is almost impossible to rebuild. If you don't know, tell us so. If you are going to do something we won't like, tell us that, explain why, and apologize. Just don't lie about it. The short-term gain is never worth the long-term cost.
Good people respond to genuine respect with respect. If they know you are listening and make decisions with the best interests of the institution in mind, they will support you, even when they don't get what they want.
5. Solicit faculty opinion both formally and informally. A dean should have lunch or coffee with a random faculty member or two every week.
6. Look for ways to cut unneeded committee work and paper work. I just landed a grant--do I really need to attend three days of training on how to use Banner Finance? Can't the grants office (which is taking a cut after all) do it for me?
6. Look for ways to cut unneeded committee work and paper work. I just landed a grant--do I really need to attend three days of training on how to use Banner Finance? Can't the grants office (which is taking a cut after all) do it for me?
7. Be brave. Don't kowtow to social pressures or antiquated patterns of behavior.
8. Seek out the silent members. They often see things a moving mouth doesn't.
8. Seek out the silent members. They often see things a moving mouth doesn't.
9. Don't overload students into my already overburdened sections.
But if you must, at least acknowledge (directly to me--in person--looking me in the eyes) that you are in fact aware that you've upped the seat counts steadily over the last five years. Acknowledge that continuing to do so compromises the quality of education for those students who believe you've done them a favor by forcing them into my class.
Then tell me what you plan to do to rectify the situation. I'll take one (or, as it happens, a few dozen) for the team, but I need to know that the team has a fighting chance somewhere down the line...
But if you must, at least acknowledge (directly to me--in person--looking me in the eyes) that you are in fact aware that you've upped the seat counts steadily over the last five years. Acknowledge that continuing to do so compromises the quality of education for those students who believe you've done them a favor by forcing them into my class.
Then tell me what you plan to do to rectify the situation. I'll take one (or, as it happens, a few dozen) for the team, but I need to know that the team has a fighting chance somewhere down the line...
10. Make it clear, repeatedly, that you support academic freedom.
10a. Be candid with faculty when you need their support. You'd be surprised at how much backing can be gotten for things that might not yield benefits to all, but are necessary measures for a greater cause. Stop using the term, "transparency." It is quite silly. Be honest. How about "selective disclosure."
10b. Do not undermine faculty careers by piling service on them only to develop amnesia at tenure time yet celebrate all that was accomplished by the people whom you just fired. Also, remember to admit that the said faculty did not elect to waste time of huge service projects. You threatened them and based on what happened to those who have refused in the past, we already know the damage you can do.
10c. Teach a class a required, unpopular class or two before you decide if one's teaching evaluations are an accurate reflection of student learning rather than if students are merely satisfied customers. Matter of fact, TEACH.
10d. Do not make faculty spend time attending presentations of potential dean and provost candidates, have them fill out detailed evaluation forms of candidates, and when one of the candidates is voted overwhelming choice, you decide to hire none of them and begin the search all over again.
11. Lay it out on the table: University finances--and exactly how they are spent--should be open-book to anyone who wants to read it and offer advice. You've got a "company" full of highly educated and intelligent people--hey, why not use that to solve some of the problems? In other words, crowd-source the problem and allow faculty input into solving it.
12. Don't use managerial-speak and think we don't know what it means. A 'furlough' is still a pay cut.
13. Acknowledgements of success can go a long way. Okay, so we're not getting merit raises this year, but why don't you send a little *personal* email and say that you NOTICED that we busted our butts this year, brought in all that grant money, taught that extra course for nothing, etc. Make sure department heads reward success. It doesn't have to be money--a "thank you", a "well done" or just an acknowledgement goes a heck of a long way.
14. Don't you dare tell us to take furlough days only when we are not teaching classes. At least a furlough gives the worker some time off. Schedule the furloughs all on the same day and close campus. Let the students feel what happens when you refuse to fund basic government services.
15. Do not pour millions upon millions of dollars into new construction of unnecessary buildings and statues of sports heroes while you are freezing salaries (here comes year three), increasing class sizes, merging departments, cutting summer teaching opportunities, and refusing to replace retired faculty. It is despicable to fund these things while you poormouth basic faculty needs. If the money for all this lavish excess is coming from alumni donations, then tell the freaking alumni that the faculty are miserable and overburdened, and they should endow several named chairs instead of building monstrous monuments to themselves.
17. Uphold academic standards in admissions decisions. Do not accept grossly unprepared students, who typically drop out in year 1, just because they provide a short-term shot of tuition dollars.
18. Uphold academic standards in grade appeals and academic misconduct hearings.
19. Send out the open house and recruiting events schedule WELL IN ADVANCE. For heaven's sake, you know these dates months in advance. Is it really so hard to email department chairs and program coordinators the schedule? You cannot expect people to drop everything, plan a shtick and display, and rope current students into being around and visible for these things when you tell me on Thursday that we're having an open house on Saturday. (OK, this one belongs in the Venting Thread, but it is relevant here too).
20. Allow new programs, centers and institutes to develop from the ground up, rather than dictating their creation from the top down. The former results in programs, centers, and institutes consisting of one individual, some poor director or coordinator with no resources, who very low morale because no one wants to be part of the new program, center, or institute.
20a. Say something concrete about enrollment rather than repeated vague "your numbers are too low" threats. When questioned "What numbers would be acceptable?" give an honest answer.
21. If the school has financial challenges 5 out of the last 10 years, then it is not just owing to the roll of the dice. Figure out what is wrong with the underlying economic model, make that clear to everyone, and figure out how to fix it.
22. If the future of the school means expanding into programs A, B, and C, then fund programs A, B, and C. Running them on a shoestring is not kidding anyone.
23. Give us a raise.
24. Give sincere praise. Everyone is working hard. A pat on the back goes a long way when the end is no where in sight.
25. Exercise humanity. People who are working at the limits will take mistakes.
26. Get a sense of humor. Walpole was right. “Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.” Think about it.
27. Make certain that tenure and promotion requirements are in line with teaching and service requirements -- in the real world.
28. If you want to increase the institutional research profile, then cough up the money, time and RAs to make it possible for your faculty to publish more. Don't just increase the expectations.
29. Release the final schedule more then just a few weeks before the end of the semester. Say, at the beginning so they can be incorporated into our syballi.
30. Don't demand we all use the new grading software when you have yet to offer training seminars on it
31. Don't demand we use the online system unless you're going to cough up the IT support to get it working and keep it working at all hours of the day and night, when students and I are accessing it. I do not have time to make multiple trips over to IT so they can "take a look at what's wrong" with my account, when what's wrong is that it's a piece of crap that you paid some hack company and the IT people are understaffed and undertrained.
32. Don't badmouth faculty who don't use the spiffy software to students. Come to think of it, crack down on staff, advisors, and student services people who badmouth faculty who make pedagogical choices they don't get, adhere to acaademic standards, or won't excuse students from class to run fundraisers for athletics (ala high school)
32a. If you create a "policy" for your unit, make sure the creation of it involved shared governance so that it's not just an administrative fiat. Also, make sure that it is in writing in a publically accessible format, such as a faculty handbook or on the unit website. The policy doesn't exist if it's not in writing. That's just tyranny.
33. Don't tell faculty that you know better than they do how to teach a class that: A. You've never taught. B. Is outside your discipline. C. You've never even taken and couldn't explain what it was about. This is more than academic freedom. It's respecting the professional expertise for which faculty were hired. If you have a legitimate issue, that's fine, but bring it up within that context.
34. Don't hire anymore deans.
35. The same rules for all faculty. Don't tell the humanities faculty that they have to be in the office 5 days a week while the business and criminal justice faculty get to teach their courses and leave. (Yes that happened at my old school.)
36. Dear Provost: on the rare occasion that someone in the media asks you about criticism of the way you treat adjuncts, refrain from answering "our adjunct faculty are not impacted by our not offering benefits as they have full time employment elsewhere" or even anything vague that may create that perception. Be a man. Say anything you want, but don't pull facts out your butt. Not even if the president orders you to. (Just say you forgot.)
10a. Be candid with faculty when you need their support. You'd be surprised at how much backing can be gotten for things that might not yield benefits to all, but are necessary measures for a greater cause. Stop using the term, "transparency." It is quite silly. Be honest. How about "selective disclosure."
10b. Do not undermine faculty careers by piling service on them only to develop amnesia at tenure time yet celebrate all that was accomplished by the people whom you just fired. Also, remember to admit that the said faculty did not elect to waste time of huge service projects. You threatened them and based on what happened to those who have refused in the past, we already know the damage you can do.
10c. Teach a class a required, unpopular class or two before you decide if one's teaching evaluations are an accurate reflection of student learning rather than if students are merely satisfied customers. Matter of fact, TEACH.
10d. Do not make faculty spend time attending presentations of potential dean and provost candidates, have them fill out detailed evaluation forms of candidates, and when one of the candidates is voted overwhelming choice, you decide to hire none of them and begin the search all over again.
11. Lay it out on the table: University finances--and exactly how they are spent--should be open-book to anyone who wants to read it and offer advice. You've got a "company" full of highly educated and intelligent people--hey, why not use that to solve some of the problems? In other words, crowd-source the problem and allow faculty input into solving it.
12. Don't use managerial-speak and think we don't know what it means. A 'furlough' is still a pay cut.
13. Acknowledgements of success can go a long way. Okay, so we're not getting merit raises this year, but why don't you send a little *personal* email and say that you NOTICED that we busted our butts this year, brought in all that grant money, taught that extra course for nothing, etc. Make sure department heads reward success. It doesn't have to be money--a "thank you", a "well done" or just an acknowledgement goes a heck of a long way.
14. Don't you dare tell us to take furlough days only when we are not teaching classes. At least a furlough gives the worker some time off. Schedule the furloughs all on the same day and close campus. Let the students feel what happens when you refuse to fund basic government services.
15. Do not pour millions upon millions of dollars into new construction of unnecessary buildings and statues of sports heroes while you are freezing salaries (here comes year three), increasing class sizes, merging departments, cutting summer teaching opportunities, and refusing to replace retired faculty. It is despicable to fund these things while you poormouth basic faculty needs. If the money for all this lavish excess is coming from alumni donations, then tell the freaking alumni that the faculty are miserable and overburdened, and they should endow several named chairs instead of building monstrous monuments to themselves.
17. Uphold academic standards in admissions decisions. Do not accept grossly unprepared students, who typically drop out in year 1, just because they provide a short-term shot of tuition dollars.
18. Uphold academic standards in grade appeals and academic misconduct hearings.
19. Send out the open house and recruiting events schedule WELL IN ADVANCE. For heaven's sake, you know these dates months in advance. Is it really so hard to email department chairs and program coordinators the schedule? You cannot expect people to drop everything, plan a shtick and display, and rope current students into being around and visible for these things when you tell me on Thursday that we're having an open house on Saturday. (OK, this one belongs in the Venting Thread, but it is relevant here too).
20. Allow new programs, centers and institutes to develop from the ground up, rather than dictating their creation from the top down. The former results in programs, centers, and institutes consisting of one individual, some poor director or coordinator with no resources, who very low morale because no one wants to be part of the new program, center, or institute.
20a. Say something concrete about enrollment rather than repeated vague "your numbers are too low" threats. When questioned "What numbers would be acceptable?" give an honest answer.
21. If the school has financial challenges 5 out of the last 10 years, then it is not just owing to the roll of the dice. Figure out what is wrong with the underlying economic model, make that clear to everyone, and figure out how to fix it.
22. If the future of the school means expanding into programs A, B, and C, then fund programs A, B, and C. Running them on a shoestring is not kidding anyone.
23. Give us a raise.
24. Give sincere praise. Everyone is working hard. A pat on the back goes a long way when the end is no where in sight.
25. Exercise humanity. People who are working at the limits will take mistakes.
26. Get a sense of humor. Walpole was right. “Life is a tragedy for those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.” Think about it.
27. Make certain that tenure and promotion requirements are in line with teaching and service requirements -- in the real world.
28. If you want to increase the institutional research profile, then cough up the money, time and RAs to make it possible for your faculty to publish more. Don't just increase the expectations.
29. Release the final schedule more then just a few weeks before the end of the semester. Say, at the beginning so they can be incorporated into our syballi.
30. Don't demand we all use the new grading software when you have yet to offer training seminars on it
31. Don't demand we use the online system unless you're going to cough up the IT support to get it working and keep it working at all hours of the day and night, when students and I are accessing it. I do not have time to make multiple trips over to IT so they can "take a look at what's wrong" with my account, when what's wrong is that it's a piece of crap that you paid some hack company and the IT people are understaffed and undertrained.
32. Don't badmouth faculty who don't use the spiffy software to students. Come to think of it, crack down on staff, advisors, and student services people who badmouth faculty who make pedagogical choices they don't get, adhere to acaademic standards, or won't excuse students from class to run fundraisers for athletics (ala high school)
32a. If you create a "policy" for your unit, make sure the creation of it involved shared governance so that it's not just an administrative fiat. Also, make sure that it is in writing in a publically accessible format, such as a faculty handbook or on the unit website. The policy doesn't exist if it's not in writing. That's just tyranny.
33. Don't tell faculty that you know better than they do how to teach a class that: A. You've never taught. B. Is outside your discipline. C. You've never even taken and couldn't explain what it was about. This is more than academic freedom. It's respecting the professional expertise for which faculty were hired. If you have a legitimate issue, that's fine, but bring it up within that context.
34. Don't hire anymore deans.
35. The same rules for all faculty. Don't tell the humanities faculty that they have to be in the office 5 days a week while the business and criminal justice faculty get to teach their courses and leave. (Yes that happened at my old school.)
36. Dear Provost: on the rare occasion that someone in the media asks you about criticism of the way you treat adjuncts, refrain from answering "our adjunct faculty are not impacted by our not offering benefits as they have full time employment elsewhere" or even anything vague that may create that perception. Be a man. Say anything you want, but don't pull facts out your butt. Not even if the president orders you to. (Just say you forgot.)
37. If I haven't had a raise in nine years, I'm not going to donate part of my pay back to the college, so save the expense of asking me in a letter.
38. In a multi-campus system, don't insist that all college-wide and committee meetings are held at the main campus. The excuse that a branch campus is an hour away from the main campus doesn't cut it: It is an hour in both directions.
39. For a university that serves both traditional age undergrads and adult learners, and/or one that serves both undergrads and grad students, don't design all systems and processes to meet the needs of traditional age undergrads.
39. For a university that serves both traditional age undergrads and adult learners, and/or one that serves both undergrads and grad students, don't design all systems and processes to meet the needs of traditional age undergrads.
40. Have fair and thorough reviews of Deans and upper-level administration. Replace those who are not competent or who are power hungry. Then have open searches with input from all constituents.
41. Reduce the amount of needless assessment, steam-line protocols.
42. Empower faculty to make decisions and have a faculty senate that does something
41. Reduce the amount of needless assessment, steam-line protocols.
42. Empower faculty to make decisions and have a faculty senate that does something
43. Human Resources should make some effort to understand the jobs that they are setting the pay scale for. Yes, you can get green, untested first tier IT support people for eight dollars an hour. That's not the wage that you pay your experienced network engineer.
Okay, the comments section is open!
(10,136)
#2- I think this is a great suggestion, and I commend you for your work in this area in the past year.
ReplyDelete#11- I couldn't agree more with this assessment. It is public money, and there should be outside input, but I would go even further in our purview- faculty, staff, students, and community. Although what we do can be "opened" at any time through FOIA, it's not often obvious where the money goes and why it goes there. The new standees are a great start, and the town halls helped a lot, but I hear a lot from community members about "too much tax money" going toward improvements they see as cosmetic when they are paying higher tuition. It would be great if we could show them why they are NEEDED.
#12- I think this is a universal problem in any industry, and any person willing to make a stand and call things what they are gains my respect.
#14- This is actually a great idea, but probably wouldn't win any popularity contests. I think that if the public knew the fiscal pains that we go through, they might think twice before declaring the end of the world at any tax increase. An example, if MAP reimbursement is cut five percent, classroom instruction is cut five percent. I doubt that is legal, but the threat could drive the point home.
#20- I feel we have the opposite problem at Parkland. Too often, new programs are developed by one individual, and are therefore made or broken by them. I feel that if an idea is good enough to be implemented, it ought to be given support at all levels, and should not be left to become a vanity project. Often, these things linger for years after they've outlived their usefulness.
#27- Although I am pretty sure this is being worked on, I believe that a more merit-based promotional system is long overdue with both our faculty and staff.
#35- I believe that this is a problem in all areas of education. Some jobs simply require more work than others and are paid on an equal scale. I'm not sure what can be done about this apart from top-down re-evaluations, but it certainly leads to resentments.
#43- I think that this is a difficult suggestion to implement for any large institution, barring adding an HR representative from each unit (although I do not think that would be such a bad idea, if it were at all feasible). Technology is a perfect example for that. There are entry-level positions that can be filled with relatively inexperienced staff, and there are those which require years of education and experience, and the average HR professional would be hard-pressed to know the difference.
These are just a few thoughts on how these relate to us at Parkland. Thank you for the thought exercise!
Wow! A ton of discussion fodder in that article, isn’t there?
ReplyDelete1) First off – a comment about the “morale” at Parkland – at least one pov, if you will. I know that morale was brought up at one of the brown bag discussions a few months back, and to be honest – it surprised me. I have since found out that, yes – there are a few hotspots and trigger issues sprinkled around the campus. (I don’t get out much – so I had to ask around for info:) However, I must also say that, in general – the morale as I perceive it is pretty damned good! The economy and society in general are having quite a few issues at the moment, and I’m sure those problems influence people in terms of their overall mood. There is a lot of uncertainty in the future of the country and, to a hopefully lesser degree, in the future of Parkland. However – most of the folks I interact with seem to be hanging in there.
2) Let’s just pick on one of the many topics mentioned above, OK? I think it was 10c that referred to evaluations, and the worth of same. (Get ready for another solo pov:)
I have always maintained that course evaluations don’t tell anyone nearly as much as we might think, or hope. Many (most?) students at this level can’t dissociate their emotions about their grade from the actual evaluation process of the course and the instructor. Is there a possible solution? Maybe.
I suggest that “faculty” evals be done AT MIDTERM. Heck – if we are asked to evaluate the students by 8 weeks, then they should know enough to evaluate us – right? And because of the fact that the finality of their grade in the course is still 8 weeks down the road, they will be more likely to give a true evaluation of the instructor. Evaluation of the “course” could then wait until the end of the semester, as it is now. After all, students aren’t really in a position to evaluate the course until they’ve been through most of it. Yes, this system would have (many?) drawbacks, as will any system. For example, it would require TWO evals per semester and many faculty complain about the one evaluation we have now:) OTOH – I truly think that it would help with obtaining meaningful faculty evaluations, which isn’t the case with the current system. (And for those wondering, no – I don’t happen to habitually get bad evals from students via the current system. I just think that it could work better:) Oh, and the techno-wizards HAVE to be able to come up with a way to do the evals ONLINE. Come on – there has to be some type of enticement out there that won’t get the suits in an uproar:)
Time to get back to course prep. Really look forward to feedback on this article, and the one coming down the pike!
Cheers! - jm
I think I fixed it, John. I removed the duplicates.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy #37, specifically because of the waste of paper. We get beautiful cards all the time, when the image could have simply been emailed. Likewise, for donations to the combined charities and the college, I would love to just be sent a link so I can set up my donation online.
ReplyDelete