Mansfield's Comments On Evaluations Paradoxical

To the editors:



Re: “CUE Proposal Irks Some Faculty,” news, May 3:

I read with bemusement Professor Harvey Mansfield’s comments on course evaluations. His claim that they “introduce the rule of the less wise over the more wise, of students over professors” must appear odd in light of recent events. Surely Mansfield disapproved of the Faculty’s (i.e. the “more wise”) pushing out President Summers over the objections of the students (i.e. the “less wise”)? We appear then to be faced with a double paradox: occasionally, the “less wise” can be wiser than the “more wise,” and occasionally, one of the “more wise,” indeed one of the wisest of the “more wise,” can be unwise.



DAVID J. MESKILL

Cambridge, Mass.

May 3, 2006



The writer is Lecturer in Social Studies.