CUE Debates Course Proposals

Undergraduates could see greater faculty involvement in their discussion sections and a more formalized midterm evaluation system if two student proposals are implemented.

One proposal would “require or encourage” professors who teach undergraduate lecture courses to lead each of their course’s sections at least once each semester, while the second proposal would give students a voice in improving their courses by implementing a College-wide feedback system in the middle of the term.

The two proposals — which were presented Wednesday to a meeting of the Committee on Undergraduate Education — would have to be taken up by additional faculty committees before they could be formally approved.

At the meeting, members of the Committee on Undergraduate Education — which includes administrators, faculty, and students — weighed in on the proposals, which were drafted by the Undergraduate Council’s student-run Education Committee.

While members of the Committee on Undergraduate Education were generally supportive of professor-led sections, most said they thought the proposal should not be mandated for the entire College.

Instead, some Committee members said they thought the proposal would be better implemented as a recommendation only for discussion-based humanities and social science sections, which are more conducive to faculty-student interaction than homework-based math and science sections.

The proposal for increased faculty leadership in discussion sections was intended to eliminate the discomfort some students say they feel when interacting with faculty after lectures, and during office hours, said Education Committee Vice-Chair Jared Daar ’12, who drafted the proposal.

“Anyone who’s had an experience with office hours knows that it can sometimes be a sort of awkward encounter,” Daar said. He added that he thought faculty-led sections would provide students with an opportunity to get to know their professors in a setting with a specified topic.

However, Computer Science Professor and Former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 maintained that intellectual engagement with faculty is “a bigger issue” than just teaching section.

To supplement faculty-led sections in humanities and social science courses, he called for additional ways of encouraging professor-student interaction.

The proposal suggests that the policy should initially be limited to lecture courses with four or fewer discussion sections so as not to place an undue burden on professors, according to Education Committee Chair Samuel F. Himel ’13.

The second proposal offered by the Education Committee called for a centralized instructor evaluation system that would “complement the Q Guide.”

Currently, students must submit Q Guide evaluations at the end of the term in order to access their grades, while the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning informally facilitates mid-semester evaluations that some professors and teaching fellows distribute to their students.

Although most members of the Committee on Undergraduate Education supported a more formal mid-semester evaluation system, many said they thought the Bok Center’s existing system suffers not from a lack of access, but from under-use.

According to Daar, the proposal arose from the concern that “there wasn’t always a mechanism in place where students can give feedback” mid-semester.

Himel, who drafted the proposal, added that he thought a new midterm evaluation system could indirectly aid in Pre-Term Planning by providing an additional metric to plan for student enrollment.

Lewis questioned the utility of student-generated feedback. In place of the existing student-generated instructor feedback system, Lewis called for “a system of faculty evaluating faculty.”

—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.