The Evaluation Situation

We've got shopping period. We've got reading period. And just before break, we added another period to our academic lives: evaluation period.

The bi-annual ritual has nothing to do with grading students on their performance during the semester--there's already time enough for that. Instead, this is the week at the end of each semester when students trudge from class to class, filling out those pink bubble sheets full of questions about courses, professors and teaching fellows. The resulting CUE Guide is used by unsuspecting first-years and by even more experienced upperclass students in the pursuit of the "right" classes to make a great semester.

I am pretty burnt out from filling out numerous evaluation forms. In fact, I nearly lost it when I saw the Dining Service's feedback forms at the Greenhouse in the Science Center. Not only have I filled out CUE Guide evaluations for four classes, but I've also bubbled a couple of departmental evaluations. Last year at this time, I had to evaluate my "freshman experience" for the Freshman Dean's Office.

I must confess that I am guilty of some academic dishonesty, or at least academic apathy. I didn't read questions 18 through 22 on the last course evaluation I did. I just couldn't. Instead, I blackened the circles corresponding to three's. I figured that three's were nice and neutral.

I'm not the only one to shrug off evaluations; students across campus are filling in bubbles in interesting patterns, or ignoring the forms altogether. By not taking the evaluations seriously, students waste a precious opportunity to turn the tables and "grade" professors and teaching fellows on the jobs they have done.

The concept behind asking for student evaluations is a good one. After all, no committee of academic experts can gauge the effectiveness of a particular professor's teaching style as well as a group of his or her students. The whole evaluation process also gives students a sense of control over the academic environment at Harvard. That's the least we can ask for, considering we're paying about $1250 per course.

There are, however, problems with the evaluation process, and one would have to be naive to believe that it provides a full forum for student participation in the educational process. The biggest problem is, of course, the student responses themselves. Students receive the forms in class, and are generally given about 20 minutes to complete every question. Because most classes are evaluated at the same time, the bubble-filling and blurb-writing quickly turns tiring and tedious.

Brilliant professors and truly horrendous professors do probably receive appropriate ratings, but most teachers who do not fit either extreme (which probably amounts to most of the professors at Harvard) never really get a proper evaluation.

A huge portion of undergraduate education at Harvard takes place in sections. A teaching fellow can singlehandedly render a class meaningful or worthless. Because in many courses teaching fellows change from year to year, evaluations do not truly help students to figure out which teaching fellows are the best.

In addition, the CUE Guide lists only teaching fellows who have received high ratings. While this is helpful, bad teaching fellows are not listed and thus, students can not steer clear from the TFs who could make a semester miserable.

Because the CUE Guide is so important to students choosing classes, some professors revamp their courses in response to student evaluations. While this is encouraging, these changes are often too abrupt and motivated by the wrong rationale.

For example, the Core Curriculum has turned the "gut" into a staple for the Harvard undergraduate. Gutology has developed into a science; students identify subspecies like "grade gut" and "work gut." In order to avoid the "gut" label, certain professors have made their classes considerably harder over the course of a semester or a year.

Such a sudden change in a class only traps students who find themselves unprepared to do the work. In addition, grading a class more harshly or dumping more work on students does not translate into a more rigorous course, much less a better one.

The evaluation process has its limits--especially at Harvard. Well-respected, well-known professors will never be fired or removed from their teaching jobs because of unfavorable student evaluations. Neither will mediocre or bad professors who happen to have tenure. Of course this is fair; professors are not elected officials who can be voted out of office when students so wish. However, the tenure system promises that our evaluations will never serve as much more than warnings or indicators for other students. It is unrealistic to think that many classes will be changed dramatically.

If the purpose of evaluation week at Harvard is to pass on general stereotypes about some classes and occasionally to point out a course that's unusually awful or wonderful, then the current evaluation process is satisfactory. But if Harvard believes in using student input to improve classes, then the evaluation process must be modified.

First of all, the idea of departmental evaluations is a good one. If departments could customize their evaluation forms to fit specific courses or at least specific subject areas, then student responses would be more precise and therefore more meaningful.

Secondly, student advisory committees would prove helpful in larger classes. Already, a few classes use such a program, in which each section sends a student representative to meet with the professor. In larger classes, such committees can bring professors a lot closer to students and their concerns.

Finally, recognizing the limitations of any type of standardized evaluation, students must continue to meet with their professors individually during office hours. Only by improving student-faculty contact can we improve undergraduate education at Harvard.