Undergraduates Must Take CUE Evaluations Seriously

To the editors:

Having been on both sides of the podium—Harvard undergrad and TF—I would go one step farther than today’s editorial (“Will A Professor Please Stand Up?”). Both faculty and students should be accountable for their CUE evaluations. For evaluations to be meaningful, all students—not just those with the strongest positive and negative feelings—must complete them with the knowledge that their comments could appear in their instructor’s teaching portfolio to be read by hundreds of faculty search committee members across the country.

The College has clearly not communicated to students just how important their evaluations are for the careers of their instructors. Most undergraduates seem to believe that their evaluations are primarily for the CUE guide, and the College has not disabused them of this notion. As a result, while students often make thoughtful and helpful comments on informal mid-term evaluations, their CUE evaluations are usually too vague to be helpful.

Better communication about the importance of CUE evaluations would help both undergraduates and instructors.



JANET E. ROSENBAUM ’99

Cambridge, Mass.

Dec. 14



The writer is a student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.