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Show The Dixie Sun Page 2 March 11, 1997 News Editor: Missy Evans University of Utah students see the truth By DAN EGAN SALT LAKE TRIBUNE As of this qua University of Utah students have to turn to the Internet to get their grades of course. Now student evaluations of faculty members will be hitting tl e 'Net for all to see. "We're not trying to go on a witch hunt and get after any specific professor," said student Mike Affleck. "We just want information that is already collected and available through individual departments to be more accessible." Affleck, who is coordi- nating the project for the Associated Students of the University of Utah, said DROP-I- N the first evaluations should be electronically published this month. The U. Policy and Procedures Manual states that students can publish the numerical grades for teachers, but it prohibits publication of the accompanying written evaluations. Evaluations vary from department to department, but Affleck said most of the numerical grades deal with an instructor's knowledge, presentation and overall feelings toward a class. Acting president Jerilyn McIntyre said the written comments are censored because they are anonymous and often contain irrelevant and flippant comments about instruc tors. Students can view those records, but they cannot duplicate them. ASUU president Jeff Casper said the student government group has yet to decide whether to pursue publishing written evaluations. He said one option is to summarize them. "Our goal is not to select a few comments about how horrible someone is or how great someone is," said Affleck. "We want to make an overall evaluation that is helpful and useful but is also honest." Casper said students several years ago published a booklet of the numerical evaluations, but proved too costly. There are about 26,000 students enrolled at the U. Publication on the Internet all of the U.'s 3,700 faculty members by fall. is free. "It will be a great way to get information to stu- The debate over public access to the records is not new. McIntyre said it was an issue when she was an dents," said Casper. McIntyre said she expects little debate over the students' plan to make faculty evaluations available with the click of a mouse. She said the Internet is simply another form of publication. "Some people might have some different opinions on that, but it is theoretically only a more sophisticated form of communication," she said. Casper said they will start posting this month on a trial basis and the goal is to have listings for undergraduate in the 1960s, and last year students at the University of Idaho went to court and won the right to publish numerical faculty evaluations in the student newspaper. There is no system wide policy for the publication of student faculty evaluations at the state's public colleges and universities, said Mike Petersen, an associate commissioner for the Utah System of Higher Education. Free Titoring for any Dixie College Student Come see us in the Browning Building, Room 105 |