“Hey have you taken professor so and so for philosophy?” “No, but I heard he was easy.” “Good enough for me, I’m taking him.”
Conversations like this are heard all over campus during registration time. However, Fairfield may begin to implement a new way of getting information available about professors to the students.
Driven by the platform of FUSA President Kevin Neubauer, ’05, Vice President of Senate Geoff Cook, ’05, is attempting to make evaluations of professors by students available online.
“We want to put evaluations online so students can have a better way of picking teachers for their classes during registration,” said Cook.
At press time, over 250 teachers at Fairfield had been evaluated on a Web site called Rate My Professor.com. Here, anyone can evaluate any teacher, even if he or she did not take a class with that professor.
“We don’t want to attack the faculty,” said Cook. “We do not need the faculty’s approval, but we want them to know what we are planning to do.”
According to Cook, he got the idea to implement this from a similar service that Villanova University uses and from the fact that so many people use a service such as Rate My Professor.com.
“We want to make this work to its full potential,” said Cook. “We will make sure that there are at least 10 to 15 evaluations before it actually counts. We also would have an option to put a biography of the professor or even a syllabus of the class the professor taught.”
Cook said that there would be high security measures that would be implemented as well. Those include a person to monitor and edit evaluations and a password protected login screen so only students who have taken the class can evaluate.
According to Cook, a student would log in and conduct the evaluation on the website, not in the actual class.
“I believe that this gives students another piece of information,” said Dr. Alan Katz, professor of Politics. “Students should be able to make informed decisions … students are probably now just making decisions of word of mouth.”
Some students agree.
“I think seeing other students’ evaluations would help in deciding whether or not to take a certain professor,” said Tom Wielczewski, ’04. “But I really don’t feel like enough of the student body will take advantage of it. The best way to find out about teachers is through your friends.”
Katz believes it is a good idea to go to the faculty before this is implemented because the results of the forms that students traditionally have filled out at the end of a semester have been portrayed as confidential.
“I feel that some faculty may view this as a breach of confidentiality,” said Katz. “It definitely is a sensitive issue. But if faculty evaluations are available, I think students should use them.”
Secretary of the General Faculty Irene Mulvey felt the evaluations could be helpful to students.
“It is a chance for students to be brutally honest, since the forms that you get at the end of the year do not have to be handed in,” said Mulvey.
“I think it would have definite value, especially the essay part. What I am afraid of is the security issue. The students who are giving the evaluations should be willing to take responsibility for what they write,” she said.
Students also said that the evaluations could be helpful in the quest to find information about a professor quickly.
“I think it would definitely help,” said Danielle Koziura, ’04. “Sometimes when you ask around about a professor you can never find someone who has taken them. You would be able to see what the professors are like if the evaluations were online in each specific class since some professors teach some classes differently than they would teach others.”
FUSA is ready to put the time and energy into making these evaluations available.
“We have the money for it,” said Cook. “We are willing to work with the University Council to see that it goes through, but I cannot say for sure whether it will happen or not.”
“The success of it depends a lot on the presentation to the faculty,” said Neubauer. “We will put emphasis on it and make it as professional as possible.”
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