Professor, time, days, course load, subject matter. No 8:00 a.m. classes, Fridays off, and no papers over ten pages.
As students spend this week and next registering for major, minor and core courses, they constantly question friends and classmates about professors and the difficulty of prospective courses.
Although a number of students turn to the Fairfield section of www.ratemyprofessors.com for advice, FUSA is trying to offer an alternative source of information.
The effort began last year by adding an entirely student-run website to their peer counseling program, www.fairfieldFUSE.com.
At this point, however, this website may as well not exist for most students, as it seems that only a few even know it was created.
According to Brett Ritterbeck ’05, vice president of Senate, there were some problems with the site.
“The site had minimal publicity and therefore not known to much of the student body, only because it was the end of the semester and most students had their sights set on summer,” he said.
“Various legal issues arose and the possibility of adding more confusion was an issue,” he said. “Much to our dismay, there was much apprehension by the admininistration, as is any project we intend to carry out using the Fairfield name.”
“I’ve never even heard of a FUSA website for peer advising,” said Lindsey Battista ’05. “I use www.ratemyprofessors.com, so I think a FUSA website for advising would be useful, I’ve just never heard anything about it.”
This semester the site served even less purpose than usual as it shut down earlier this semester and several explanations have been offered.
The most popular rumor was that students were giving honest opinions about how they felt about professors and their classes, and that teachers objected to posting those opinions on a university website. It seems now, however, that this is a myth.
“The truth is that there was some confusion as to when the contract with the company that does the site expired,” said Paul Duffy ’05, FUSA president. “No one paid the bill and therefore it was shut down due to nothing more than a lack of communication.”
However, the rumor about teacher complaints did have some foundation in reality.
The point was raised at a university council meeting that professors held a level of discontent with the site. They were upset they had little to no involvement with the website.
They were not concerned about the student opinions, but rather the lack of professor input about the site, according to Duffy, a student representative to the university council.
“A resolution has been passed and fellow members of FUSA will be working more closely with them in the future,” said Duffy. “This is still purely a student run and student oriented website.”
Since the miscommunication that led to the shutdown of the website, the bill has been paid and the website will be back up soon.
Yet one must wonder if the site is even worth the check FUSA just cut to get it running again. Students involved in the production of the website are hopeful for its future.
“The site is a collaborative effort between teachers and students,” said Marc D’Angelillio ’06, a member of FUSA. “In the near future we hope it’ll provide a more fair and mature alternative to www.ratemyprofessors.com.”
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