Student Evaluation of Teachers, Revisited

Good article for discussion:

https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/02/09/teaching-evaluations-are-often-used-confirm-worst-stereotypes-about-women-faculty?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=8d9385c100-DNU20180111&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-8d9385c100-198482621&mc_cid=8d9385c100&mc_eid=ab27a3f05f

As usual, the comments are as good as the article.

My position is that SETs should have objective questions about teaching behavior and minimize opportunities for students to comment on anything extraneous (like looks or tastes in clothes); should be used as formative assessment primarily (instructor can address concerns in annual evaluations and be expected to improve in specific areas); should never be used as primary evidence in tenure and promotion unless clearly problematic. In the last, if using a 5-point scale and the instructor never gets above 4, that is problematic.  But if an instructor routinely gets 4.3 and the mean  for the institution is 4.4, there should be investigation into why and other sources examined for tenure and promotion.

However, I can understand why an administrator would not tenure someone whose evals are consistently below institutional means.  It is likely that the faculty member will let the whole issue slide after tenure and it would be hard to get improvement out of them.  This is why I think, in general, we need a better system than tenure.  Most faculty I know do not totally relax after tenure, but it does happen. 

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