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Show NAZI POSTERS DRAW FIRE. HELP ARRIVES FOR TAX WOES. Irate students take pen in hand in letters to editor to protest disgusting campaign posters for last weeks ASSUSC elections. A free workshop in the preparation of income tax forms will be available to students here SEE PAGE 4. PAGE 2. beginning on Tuesday. THE STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS OF SOUTHERN UTAH STATE COLLEGE SEE CEDAR CITY, UTAH Faculty evaluations arouse controversy by Dawn DeBusk the faculty may soon be classes. peering in on their Peers of Peer evalution was suggested as a means of faculty evaluation by Dan Matlock at a faculty senate meeting several weeks ago. The faculty senate in general felt that it was a good idea, but some members expressed concern that the amount of time involved with evaluation would distract from their class work with students. A committee was appointed to study the uses of peer evaluation, but the subject still remains indefinite, according to Randall Christensen. Currently faculty members are evaluated by their department chairmen and through student evaluations. Once during the academic year, teacher evaluation questionnaires are distributed to only one of the classes being taught by a particular instructor. The class is chosen through random selection by the department chairman. In the evaluation questionnaires the students rate their instructors on a scale from one to five for ten given questions. The student may also fill out a separate sheet listing their likes and dislikes about the instructor and any additional comments they may have. These forms are not shown to the instructor until after the quarter ends so that the students would be more honest in answering the questions without worrying about any effect their answers may have on their grades or on the instructors attitude. Occasionally in a stack of student evaluations, Matlock says, the teacher may find a helpful suggestion. Some of the appending concerns of the faculty are merit pay, promotions, and tenure. There is an almost inevitable move toward merit pay in teaching at SUSC, says Matlock. The biggest concern is who will receive higher pay and how will this be determined. Merit pay is also based on the teachers professional development and his contributions to the community and his department, says Matlock. Tenure is a concept which is unique to the teaching field, says Matlock. After an instructor has taught for at least seven years, he is reviewed and the decision is made whether or not he will recieve tenure. The instructor must be considered worthy of a long-tercommitment by the institution because once he is granted tenure he is protected from political interference and community pressure. This academic freedom was first established in Medieval times, Matlock explains, and allows instructors to make creative studies in m their field. Matlock stresses that his proposal is only an additional means of evaluation to the student evaluations and the department chairmans power of final decision, and is not meant to burden the faculty in any way. The suggested scheme states that every faculty member will be subject to formal peer review every fourth year. Peer evaluation of any instructor will not span longer than one quarter, but may take place during any quarter. The department chairman will retain his power of evaluating instructors in his department by choosing the committee which will review the instructor. Each member of the committee must attend a minimum of three class periods during the quarter in which they review the instructor. It is advantageous that the committee attend the instructors lectures, labs, and discussions in order to get a better overall idea of his effectiveness, Matlock contends. This idea of having a rigid system of reviewing seemed burdensome to some faculty members, says Matlock, but each committee member would put in five hours of work at the most. Three hours would be spent sitting in on the instructors classes, one hour writing the evaluation, and one more hour meeting with the instructor. One-fourt- h of the faculty will be evaluated while the other three-fourtwill be on committees during one Dan Matlock, an SUSC associate professor, advocates the idea of peer evaluations. quarter of the year, explains Matlock. David Lee, professor of English, is concerned that the peer evaluations may take much more time and prove to be an intrusion on fellow faculty members. Frankly, I love to be evaluated, but I do not like the time and intrusion of evaluating someone else, he said. It 0 should take up to hours to evaluate because thats how much time the students are putting in when they evaluate. If you want to get an evaluation of a teacher, take a class from that teacher. You cant give an accurate evaluation in three classes, he said. This is not a slur on my collegues, but someone said students arent qualified to evaluate I think this is sheer taechers nonsense. Lee says that half the students who graduate from SUSC have gone through 12-2- student teaching and are far better equipped to evaluate teachers. We should make student evaluations stronger, though, he said. He suggested that graduating seniors should give a retrospective evaluation of the instructors in the department of their majors. I dont work fur the teachers, I dont work for the administrators, I work for the students, Lee said. Peer evaluation should collaborate with student evaluation. Otherwise, its just redundant. Lee is not necessarily against peer evaluations and says he is not paranoid about being evaluated, but hes unconvinced that we would gain anything through peer evaluation. According to Matlock though, the (continued on page 3) |
