Several months ago, I posted on the value of a college education. We now have a new standard for useless college educations, and it is from Dartmouth. I have a degree from Dartmouth and know that it is a highly sought college admission. I am also aware that there is a struggle going on between alumni, who wish to maintain the high standards that go back to colonial times, and new left wing activists who are attempting to wrest control of this ancient institution away from the alumni and from traditional standards.
A previous attempt in 2006 failed and so the college administration has changed the rules, packed the trustee committee and has another ballot being voted on right now. For Dartmouth, the stakes could not be higher and those students threatened with a lawsuit because of their evaluations know it. The Dartmouth Review has the story.
I actually think it is amusing that the professor is going to try to sue her students because of their rude evaluations. That is because I get evaluated for every course I teach. I sweat blood for those courses, trying to make up them up to date, relevant, and interesting.
And truthfully, 90% of the students (even if they don’t like me much) are fair and give decent criticism.
Ahhhh…the other 10%? Not so much. They are rude, thoughtless, full of snark and entitlement. They often lie (for example, claiming that a professor isn’t available at office hours, etc). And professors like me have to deal with those evaluations, and have to justify each and every one of them. That can damage our chances at tenure and or promotion.
The reason it is ironically amusing is that those 10% who feel that they “are just expressing their opinions” and such would sue like crazy if we, their professors, wrote mandatory letters about the performance and actions of those students, say, when they applied for any job.
I am making the situations congruent.
Yeah, nutty stuff everywhere at colleges. VERY true. But the worse part is how incredibly hypocritical the students are: they want others to follow rules from which they want exemption. They will demand it, in fact.
Again, the majority of the students are great. But that 10% of snotty trustifarians? Not so much.
And another case, even more troubling.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/30/suit
Victimhood is a genuine can of worms to open. Students who maligned this professor may learn that lesson. And it will be a harsh lesson indeed for future lawyers.
The whole rating thing is very controversial but I have seen the ratings at Dartmouth some years ago and they were frank and seemed to represent the majority of the students who had taken the courses. The Dartmouth Review is likewise an outlaw organization as far as the administration at Dartmouth is concerned. There is real tension there between left and right. This professor’s defense gives a lot of support to the criticisms as she seems to be hopelessly confused.
Dr. K., we are not disagreeing. I think that the Dartmouth professor is playing the typical ethnocrat card: I can do whatever I like, but you cannot because we are of different races.
I think that student evaluations of professors are very important—but they must be honest and not personal. Productive, not punitive. How to ensure that? If I had a magic wand, I would make the students evaluate the professor a year or two later. In the midst of dealing with grades, stress, and such, I find that students…ah…are not very philosophical or nuanced about issues. Perspective is hard to find right before final exams.
But we can’t do that.
Heck, we cannot ensure that teaching colleagues are always impersonal and professional while evaluating other professors.
I just think that about 10% of the “Generation Me” types–and you have had dealings with many of them at USC and in the blogosphere—are self-centered hypocrites. They say they want fairness, while asking for extensions. They want just the information necessary to pass tests. They demand respect from teachers, but do not return it.
I had a student a couple of years ago who, during research group meetings, would leaf through a magazine. I told her to please show respect to me and her fellow group members by listening politely. She shrugged (not looking up) and said that she could “multitask.”
Mind you, she said this to someone (me) who was grading her performance. And she was and is a very smart and nice person.
A week or so after that lab meeting incident, the student came to see me to discuss her senior thesis in my office. While she talked, I turned to my computer and started checking my e-mail.
Outraged, she exclaimed, “I’m talking here!”
I didn’t look up. “Oh, I can multitask,” I replied, then looked at her.
She turned beet red. She got the point.
“It’s always different when *I* do it,” should be the mantra of the current crop of students.
As I say, most of it is immaturity and a reluctance on the part of parents to teach respect for others and civility to their own children. It’s not just children. Heck, I know some people who think that civility is a form of censorship—yet those same people have no qualms about insulting other people by their actions. Civility is censorship, but rudeness is not?
It’s a societal problem. Oh well.
Good posts, Eric. I was hoping you would respond.
>>>>…a reluctance on the part of parents to teach respect for others and civility to their own children.
I think there is something in there about people hating their own society, or the world in general, so they sabotage the next generation in some vague attempt to change things. On one extreme we have the Palestinians raising their kids to be suicide bombers.
DB, I swear to you that there is a poem out there that reads, in part:
“I hunger for your blame”
I cannot remember the author. But it is ALL about our current society, sadly. We have people in our culture shouting how “fascistic” our government is when a real fascistic government would have had them executed.
And that attitude emboldens our enemies. I just don’t understand it.
The good news is that when people are faced with “noble sentiments” or paying a whole bunch of extra money in taxes, guess which they choose?
At least here.
About three years ago, I got a very negative evaluation from a student who concluded that I should never teach ICM (the Introduction to Clinical Medicine course I teach) again. He is a very charming fellow who was skating along doing the minimum. Finally, I realized that, like everyone else in his life, I was being seduced so I gave him a harsh midyear evaluation. Those midyear evaluations don’t go in the record but are intended for just this purpose. Well, he shaped up but obviously resented it. I talked to the Director of the program about it and we agreed that his third year instructors should be alerted to keep an eye on him. Medical school unlike most undergraduate programs, is a continuum and the school is very concerned about ethics and watching for sociopaths.
Anyway, I saw him two weeks ago. He is a Psych resident in his second year and that is obviously a good place for him. He has always been just as charming when I have seen him since the incident and I don’t know if he even realizes I know about his evaluation since they are confidential. It was easy to figure out who it was because all my evaluations but his have always been high.
He has an interesting background as he is Indian and very handsome with long hair. Very charming. Psych is a good spot for him. No reflection on Psych, of course.
Psych – meaning psychiatry? My step ended up goint that route and I admit to being disappointed…of all the things you could do, you pick psychiatry? he’s doing well of course with the shortage of psychiatrists and all.
Anyway, I hear the sense of entitlement and hypocrisy. Even when I went back to school in the 1980s, I was often enraged at fellow students chatting during class or getting special treatment on exams, recycling papers from other classes, demanding better grades because “I’m paying good money for this!” blah blah. I had a more old-fashioned approach that you pretty much take what you get in the way of professors, and if he or she was really bad you sort of shake it off after the final and never look back.
I did not like filling out evals but I guess that’s just me – everyone else seemed to write reams of critique with great relish.
Heck, we cannot ensure that teaching colleagues are always impersonal and professional while evaluating other professors.
Indeed. As much as I dislike the whole concept of student evaluations, I dislike colleague evaluations even more. In every department there is always some guttersnipe who relishes handing out bad evaluations to young adjunct or tenure-track professors. A few bad student evaluations can be written off as sour grapes, but a bad evaluation from a colleague will carry much more weight.
I just think that about 10% of the “Generation Me” types–and you have had dealings with many of them at USC and in the blogosphere—are self-centered hypocrites.
Yes, I have had more than my share of dealing with such people, both on-line and off-line (as you all well know). I can’t avoid dealing with them in real life, but I can (and will) do so in the blogosphere. I’m re-opening my South Texian blog tomorrow with a new post. Hope you all drop by.
I did not like filling out evals but I guess that’s just me – everyone else seemed to write reams of critique with great relish.
It’s not just you. I hated doing those when I was an undergraduate and could never understand why so many of my classmates were enthusiastic about writing scathing denunciations of their professors while faling to bring such enthusiasm to their coursework.
The Dartmouth course evaluations were, at least when I was there, pretty good and students used them since they were highly selected for smarts. Too bad some didn’t use them, but that’s another story.
I’ve been a complete misanthrope about fellows students since 1967, when, finding myself (through my own stupidity) at the local junior college, a student turned to me during English 1A and said “how am I ever going to use this in REAL LIFE?”
Besides the canard that everything you study must translate into $$$ instantly, I mean…English comp – not useful??