Version 6.0ish. Digital Humanities. Running. Linux.

I feel this even now as I prepare my yearly evaluation. When it seems that so much of the tenure decision is based on student evaluations, I’m not sure how many ever get tenured.

A similar trend is how many approach higher education as if it is a service business: as if professors are waiters, the knowledge a meal to be consumed, and the administrators the managers. I recently had a student go to my chair about how “rude” I was to her. She had not done any work and showed no signs that she was going to, but wanted a favor from me. I suggested that she needed to show me her willingness to succeed in my class, and for that she complained to my manager. Who do you think needed to make amends?

When the academy becomes based on these consumer models, I fear there will be dire consequences.

listen man, if people disagree with the prof on any terms they have full rights the slash and burn him in the evaluation. thats thats what the evaluation if for doofus.p.s. wipe the sh!t off your nose.

Especially in colleges where the quality of instruction varies widely, students need somewhere to go to learn about the professor(s) that are going to be teaching the class(es) these students are considering. While at UCLA, I found teacher evaluations to be an important mechanism to keep professors somewhat accountable for how good of a job they were doing teaching, and not just whether they published or perished.No system is perfect, but I liked the opportunity to report on my instructor at the community college I’m attending now. She needed to be called on the carpet about her autocratic attitude towards her flawed exams.

As a check, I went to look at another instructor I was quite familiar with, and found that the reviews were quite positive, as I thought appropriate.
Then came the rub. Looking at reviews with perfect scores across the board made me think that they could have easily have been written *by* the instructor. There is no check on this kind of behavior.

Therefore, in conclusion, I suspect that the site is worth less than it otherwise would be. However, it still has value, especially in the cases of schools that don’t *have* student teacher evaluations.

Teacher Evaluations range from useless gushing hero worship to ad hominum-attacks from snotty spoiled brats. There is, however, a middle-ground between the extremes where thoughtful, truthful evaluations exist.After a 20-year career as a professor I must once again rise to thank all those who took the time to evaluate me during my career. Your considered criticism never fell on deaf ears. Your efforts — even more than my training, mentoring committees, Division Chairs, seminars, in-service weeks, your efforts did more to make me into a good, well-praised instructor than anything else.
Over the years I was glad to learn to be your servant. I was glad to provide a service. I was flattered to hear you say “thanks”.

Hello, I’m a student in Canada.
After finding my university listed on ratemyprofessor.com, and reading the most ridiculous comments, and reading the most absurd of evaluation criteria, and the absolute most ludicrous FAQ page, I decided to E-mail the webmaster.
It turned out to be an absolute waste of my time. I obviously overestimated the webmasters intent on truly helping their student users.
Each coresspondence only served to prove ratemyprofessor is not in the slightest bit, remotely serious in its intent on being a useful forum for students to exchange opinions of their professors.
The juvenile responses proved to me that whatever intentions they had in the beginning, it is now just a frat-boy pass time. Its identity depends on the controversy it causes. They have every intention on keeping it the way it is, regardless any valid critcisms.
The responses kept getting more and more rediculous to the point that now I wonder if I have been duped.
If not, then for these administrators, professors are an entertainment muse and student comments are a means to that end.
I seriously hope something can be done.
I’ve posted the conversation in my blog, if anyone wants to review them.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/unreadissue/
Michelle.
PS: I found your blog via google.com using ratemyprofessor as a keyword.

So if Gerald Lucas was such a good teacher how come e does not teach at Stockton anymore? (I’m not being cynical, i’m just asking an unbiased question, for the sake of your argument)

Maybe as profs we should start the same process with open “evaluations” of students for prospective employers and future profs to read. Would you hire one of these spoiled brats who have a “do nothing” attitude and want a grade and a favor on top of it all?

Let’s face it, sites like “Rate Your Professor” empower us to get even with our professors. Nobody should take them seriously, especially negative reviews. In truth, the professors getting the worst reviews are often the toughest professors with the highest standards. We don’t like them because they don’t spoon feed us, ditch out easy A to win points with us, and they overreact to
“academic misconduct”. In short, they are too much like our parents!!!!!!!!!

Look. let’s be fair. I’ve always tried to be fair abotu my evaluations. And while yes, there are some petty students, many do actually take the time to fill them out properly. The disheartening thing, however, is often the feeling that if the professor is bad, that these evaluations will go completely unheeded. I know that I have had some truely god-awful professors, and would like nothing more than a refund for the class, and anythign to do with iht stricken from my records. And that is NOT because I did badly. Some of these classes I did quite well in. Nonehteless, if the prof has tenure, the students can say anything abotu them that they please, can’t they? It won’t matter in the least. At least, that’s how it feels.I’m oth a student, and a recitation and workshop leader and coordinator, so I have experience on both sides of the line. Good professors need and want input from the students. Often this input helps guide the material and how it is presented. I know it sounds like crap, but it isn’t. If I’m up there and I see glazed over eyes, I know I’m not getting through. But those blank faces we habitually put on, especially when asked a question, in order that we aren’t noticed- those are frustrating to the teacher, and make it difficult for them to know whether or not the material is understood.
At the same time, professors need to meet the studetns halfway. I currently have a professor that teaches directly out of the textbook, almost word-for-word. When you ask him a question, it knocks him off stride so it takes him a bit to get back on track. There’s no differant way of presenting an idea. He also habitually fails 3/4 of the class, and will literally yell and swear at the students. This man has Tenure? For gods sake, apparently it isn’t that hard to get. It seems like once a prof reaches full professorship, a change comes over many of them, and while they might be nice people outside of class, they are miserable excuses for human beings inside the class.
Especially in math and sciences, I notice. But those, I suppose, are because they have to teach a token class or two, and normally don’t give a crap about it, but are forced to. Thus, they have absolutely no training in teaching, and have no incentive to get it.

While it may be tempting to completely disreguard the comments of the students on these sites, it would be very fair to keep in mind that these students are paying for thse classes. Students have a right to expect a good prof for the amount of money they are paying and they have a right to complain about poor teaching. Sure, some of these sites get out of hand, but I certainly wouldn’t want to take a class where the prof just read out of the book as someone above mentioned. Education is a substantial time and financial investment. Why shouldn’t students seek out information that helps them best decide whether the style of the prof is appealing to them.

When professors come up for promotion and/or tenure review, they typically have a very large number of student evaluations they have accumulated over several years of teaching. The sample class of evaluations is not only fairly large and representative, but the results can be analyzed in the light of other relevant data, e.g., grading patterns, specific courses, evaluations from majors vs. general student body, and first-hand observations of the professor by other tenured faculty members. One really needs to take all these factors into consideration to acquire an accurate picture of a professor’s strengths and weaknesses as a teacher. I can’t see that Ratemyprofessor.com can provide anything like this to its readers. Even if one could sort through the responses and distinguish information from misinformation, it would still be a very inadequate basis on which to form opinions about professors.Dr. Michael Sudduth

I have to say that sites like rate my professor are brilliant. If you are smart enough to pick out the trend within posts, you can get an overall sense of the instructors teaching pattern. I will be graduating next semester, and as I look back on the posts of my past professors, for the most part, they are right on. Of course some can be biased, but overall fairly accurate.

A site like “Rate My Professor” has good intentions. However, like everything else that is exposed to the public, there are going to be those that believe this is the “ultimate payback” on a teacher. Granted I like to see what other students write about the teachers. But let’s be honest with ourselves, should we as students take advice from a web page that has a “hot” feature? I mean I know its out of fun, but if your your basing a decision that affects your college studies on the remarks of a few PC Spartacus’s then maybe you shouldn’t be in college.That is just my opinion of course.

Interesting blog. I found it while searching for the site you are talking about(ratemyprofessor). I too was discouraged when browsing the ratemyprofessor site. There isn’t much useful information besides things like a chili pepper if the prof is hot. I did find another site that looks pretty new http://www.theushack.com and I like its evaluations. They have the questions/answers I was looking for. No ratings for my college yet but I will be the first. I figure the site has to start somewhere and I would rather support them and then the trash site ratemyprofessor.

Much of what I saw on ratemyprofessor appeared to be a sounding board for the disgruntled student – although “seat occupier” would be a much more accurate description. I have students that won’t buy the text for a course and hope somehow they can “wing it”. In a course where the text is the lab book they just wait until an assignment is given and then expect that I should help them do the assignment. Students seem oblivious to the fact that professors were students longer than most of them will be and know most of the tricks. Having no need to inflate my ego, I have noticed that a good student will do well, for the same subject, in almost any professor’s class and a poor student will do poorly in almost any professor’s class. On the other end of student comments, what is an “easy A”? Is that like an easy Olympic gold medal? A’s aren’t meant to be easy. They are meant to indicate that you won’t make a fool of oneself, the professor, and the college or university upon entering the real world. Does the term “outsourcing” mean anything? A student’s transcript should be as ludicrous as all the medals on the military uniform of a third world dictator. Of course there is an up side to ratemyprofessor: any student that is so dumb, as to trust its statistical reliability, is not the type of student most professors would want in their class. It may be natural selection at its best.

As a professor I know, as all professors know, the most assured path to high student evaluations is giving the “easy A.” Students will generally find that untenured faculty are characterized as “easy” and “fun” while tenured faculty are characterized as “demanding” or “unfair.” This delineation is a result of the effect evals have on tenure. We become demanding (i.e. good teachers) after tenure because we know that our livelihoods are no longer threatened by what an eighteen-year-old student has to say about our methodologies. Many students, unfortunately, want a high grade simply for showing up; for these students college is an obstacle that must be overcome in order to achieve later success (measured in dollars). Other students are conscientious and view college as an opportunity to improve themselves and to exchange ideas; these students are often shortchanged by being placed in classes with the type of students I mentioned previously. Frankly, not everyone should go to college. I look forward to tenure.

My reply to this is very simple, if the information provided on any website is not an accurate representation of the truth, then it should be disregarded. I know one of my professors keeps up on what students are saying on there, and he doesn’t change the way he teaches because somebody disagrees.Also, I feel the information on that site is of course going to be overall negative… Students who are disgruntled are probably the ones who are most likely to act childishly, especially when anger clouds their judgement. I have a teacher that has a low score on the site, and I think he is a great teacher (so do many), but there are people that hate him because he’s very liberal with no intention on shutting up about it.

Some people can’t just disagree, they of course have to be childish, and the people who read the ratings should understand that, and move on. Sadly, college students can be VERY childish, that’s probably why schools make college difficult — so these people either grow up or take their arrogance with them into failure.

Rate my professor is not only a bad joke, it is also an exercise in irresponsibility. When I grade my students, I own that decision: I take responsibility for my assessment of what the student has earned. Why can students anonymously assess me and my colleagues? And recall that RMP “ratings” are on the web in perpituity: one prof at my U is DEAD, and he has ratings up! Also, ANYONE can rate you: an angry neighbor, a jilted lover….ANYONE. And finally, anyone can read them as well. My daughter, sadly, and her friends looked me up and she was horribly embarrassed. This site must stop and I mean it. Finally, the admin does nothing to regulate site behavior, even if it is obscene or threatening. 44

Rate my professor is a travesty. I have been teaching at a community college since 1989 and the diversity of students is at times challenging in a positive way and at times overwhelming. Teachers are human beings as well as professionals and should not be subjected to the whims and mood swings of disgruntled students. Truly this site can ruin one’s career and I would like to attain tenure!

William, just wanted to update your URL of the original discussion from my web site. Thanks.http://earthshine.org/node/252

An interesting thread, specifically since I am one of those who has been victimized by RMP in the past. Oddly enough, in previous positions (this is my first as tenure-track), my evals were always among the best in the department. Since so much weight is placed on student evals (this much was obvious when I received my faculty evals), I quickly realized I had to make some changes. I did, and as a result have eliminated about 90 percent of the negative posts I received in the past.How? It was very easy. First, I diluted the content of the upper-division courses I teach so that a high school student could easily do well in them, assuming he/she showed up for class once in a while and actually did the reading and assignments. This is unfortunate for the few students who really want to learn (and who should now be posting negative comments on RMP, although for some reason they don’t), but I have a career to think about.

I also modified the grading scale; now, I only give 2 grades: A or B. Before you say this is dishonest, I should note that a few years ago, I read a front-page article in Educ. Weekly that was written by a full, tenured prof at Duke, who was at that time occupying an endowed chair at Stanford. His name escapes me, but he explained that he never gives a grade below B, since to do so is tantamount to academic suicide. At the time, I thought this article was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek commentary on grade inflation, but I’ve since realized that this fellow was being serious. After reviewing what is reported as the average GPA at my university (3.78/4.00), I realized just how right he was. No, I do not teach at an Ivy League school, nor at any other institute that is typically mentioned as one of the top in the country.

By making these changes, I am able to survive–although the irony of the situation does not escape me. I still occasionally get negative posts, but they are usually from students who fail to complete an assignment, and then claim I must have lost their submission. To put a spin on an old excuse, my dog must have eaten their homework.

But I do need to thank RMP for one thing: I now have much more free time to devote to my research. There are far fewer assignments to grade, and given that the content is watered down, I can now have grad students teach my courses. But I wonder how many others are doing the same thing–and what effect this will have on our educational system in the long run.

BTW, do not try to identify me; like the students who post in RMP, I have used a pseudonym. There is no such thing as “academic freedom” for those who have yet to receive tenure. Given what I am forced to do to survive, I wonder if there is any such thing as “academic integrity.” Maybe that only refers to our research.

The solution:

“www.ratemystsudent.com”

I believe all Professors posting on this site forget how much education cost these days. I could have bought two houses with the money I have spent on terrible teachers like you. I pay 12,000 a semester, commute 40 minutes to school and back to listen to some dip sh*t regurgitate the chapter I read the night before to me. Don’t even tell me to transfer because it’s like this everywhere, I know first hand. Education is WAY OVER PRICED for Professors to be half as*ed about their teaching.

This must be an interesting issue to many folks since you’ve gotten a lot of comments. Knowing some of the professors I’ve seen comments about, I would have to agree with students. On the other hand, there is a lot of whining and anger because certain professors don’t go out of their way to build self-esteem, which I don’t think is their job. That’s for grade school teachers. Though I have know professors who deserve the negative comments they get because they are horrible teachers and biased in their treatment to students and colleagues.