"We recommend that the faculty adopt a policy that requires the soliciting of teaching evaluations from all students in all classes," states the CAP report. The provision, Recommendation 20 of the report, is intended to improve the College's pedagogy. "Evaluations by students are extremely useful in providing instructors with the feedback they need to determine what is working in the classroom and what is not," the report claims. "It seems especially appropriate to learn from such evaluations as we make major pedagogical changes."
The Meeting of the Faculty, which recently has been intently focused on analyzing the report, seized upon Recommendation 20 as a point of contention. The College has long required student evaluations for junior faculty, whose positions are not yet secure. Although many tenured professors solicit evaluations on their own accord, they are not mandated to do so, and their evaluations are of a very different nature than those of their junior colleagues.
Assistant Professor of English Anston Bosman articulated the disparity between the two. "It is important to remember that senior faculty are asking for feedback on the structure of the course and how well their students learned, while junior faculty are asking, in a very uncomfortable way, to be evaluated about themselves," he said.
The CAP report, while recognizing the differences between the two evaluations, aims to encourage equity between them. "All untenured faculty benefit from a regular process of student evaluation, and many tenured faculty employ similar methods less formally," the report continues. "All faculty at Amherst would undoubtedly benefit from their students' assessment."
Several members of the faculty, led by Assistant Professor of Computer Science Scott Kaplan, took umbrage at the recommendation. "The tenured faculty who don't solicit evaluations have chosen not to and I trust their judgment," he said. "All the faculty here is good at what they do, and they can decide their methods for themselves."
Professor of Psychology Lisa Raskin also vehemently objected to the proposal. "I don't think this is a good idea," she said. "There are many studies that show that evaluations are related to grade inflation. There are studies that show that evaluations are tied to the attractiveness of the teacher. Male teachers generally receive better evaluations than female. I'm in favor of abandoning them after a professor gets tenure."
Raskin also questioned the motivation behind the proposal. Although the purported intent of the recommendation is fostering pedagogy, Raskin voiced suspicion that the purpose had more to do with keeping up appearances to the outside world than improving the quality of teaching. Indeed, the report does unfavorably compare Amherst's policies to those of other institutions. "At present, Amherst is almost alone in not requiring teaching evaluations of all its faculty, a subject of concern in our last reaccreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges," the report states.
Professor of History and CAP Co-Chair John Servos tried to allay Raskin's concerns. "We're just recommending that professors solicit evaluations for their own personal use, not tied to salary or outside viewing or anything else," he said.
Professor of LJST Austin Sarat raised further questions about the wisdom of evaluations. "The more of them students fill out, the less meaningful they become," he said. "The students start to view themselves as consumers, with us as commodities, and I don't think that's a culture we should cater to."
Despite the objections of some professors, the reaction of the faculty, for the most part, was cautiously positive. Associate Professor of Psychology Catherine Sanderson led the recommendation's supporters. "We don't have a full sense of our strengths and weaknesses as teachers because of our natural biases," she said. "If I didn't solicit evaluations, I would have a false sense of myself as a teacher. Furthermore, it's very validating for students. They put a lot of time and effort into their classes, and it has to be a two-way academic street for them even if all you do is take the evaluations back to your office and set them on fire."
Professor of History and Women and Gender Studies Margaret Hunt also supported the proposal. "The evaluations offer data, albeit problematic data, from the people we are supposed to be spending all our time with and trying to instruct," she said.
Hunt, a senior faculty member, then expressed dissatisfaction at the divide between junior and senior faculty members. "I have long felt you should also be prepared to get feedback yourself, and not just use it to evaluate junior faculty. I believe it is corrupt to do otherwise," she said.
Ultimately, it was the equality between senior and junior faculty that garnered the most favor. "Insofar as seniors are evaluating juniors, it would behoove us to do this for ourselves as well," claimed Professor of Russian Stanley Rabinowitz. "I'm convinced that the most compelling argument here is for equity."
Before the meeting adjourned, Raskin motioned to strike the recommendation from the CAP report. Discussion of the motion will commence at the faculty's next assemblage.