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Show - 3 - Editorial Take Action Now On Evaluation Things arc looking pretty glum for any sort of course or teacher evaluation this quarter. According to the mail from the registrar we only have a few clays to decide whether we even want to stay in school. Again we must say, "wait till next quarter." There is a ray of hope in that the names of professors pro-fessors will after all appear adjacent to the courses they're teaching (if the department has decided yet). So the cognoscenti among us will be able to pick and choose among courses in a mad game of fool the computer. com-puter. But the freshman or sophomore who'd like to know what is taught in a class or who is teaching it must rely on the General Catalog. Such a student will be a bit better off if he or she has an older friend, fraternity fra-ternity brother or someone else to advise him. But neither the cognoscenti nor the freshman is really getting a full measure. For one thing, reliance on one's circle of friends has a tendency to limit one's possibilities of experience. In a sense, the freshman is better off. As he and the Univac cast wildly about for classes to fill the hours between required subjects, his field will be broadened. If, on the other hand, one had a book of course evaluations, one could shop around in the broad range of subjects offered at the University for the sorts of things that lead to a liberal education in the best sense. O On another level, it's at least a possibility some students have a difficult time learning from a professor others find absolutely enlightening. This is traceable to teaching methods. Teacher evaluation could at least describe the teaching method of a given professor and need not give any value judgement. With this, the student enamored of audio-visual type teachers could avoid the stand-up-lecuture-for-an-hour sort. If we make evaluation sound good, it's because we're very much in favor of it, and the sooner the better. We realize there are a lot of problems such as inter-faculty tension that might be engendered or the possibility a professor might be misjudged. The objection ob-jection heard most often is that a glib, shallow teacher would be rated higher than a deep, pedantic one. But we can't find out if these objections are valid by endlessly end-lessly discussing the matter around infinite conference tables. The question, "What happened to course evaluation?" evalu-ation?" was on the Executive Council agenda Thursday, Thurs-day, but when it was about to come up for discussion several member of the council had to leave and the quorum was lost. The matter was tabled with a brief assurance it had not been forgotten. We urge, beg and plead that student government begin to take some action on this matter. |