Editorial: Taking the right step forward

04/08/09 - The University of Rhode Island has finally decided to update its Student Evaluations of Teaching, or the SETs, by providing new questions and an online format.Though the process took about 10 years, the idea of compiling SET information online was announced at the end of the last academic year.

But with these new compilations also came the expectation that the results would be made public, not only to individual faculty members and administration, but also to students.

It shouldn't be a question whether to reveal SET results to the student body or not - it's every student's right to see the opinions of their peers. What is the university afraid of?

While making the jump to the Internet was a much-needed change, the most important step the university should take in improving the SETs, which were largely seen as inefficient, would be to make the results visible to students.

Just like the federal government has checks and balances, universities have checks and balances, too. But there is something seriously wrong when students cannot monitor the progress of the administration.

The university needs to take responsibility for its actions. Those actions include the hiring of various faculty in every department. If there is a faculty member who repeatedly does not meet the standards of higher education, it should be the student's right to challenge that individual and refer to his or her teaching history.

The university could argue the surveys reflect the "likeability" of the professor. But if that's true, maybe the Faculty Senate should look at the already-tailored questionnaire and change it again so the questions strictly relate to teaching methods.

It would be unfortunate if the university had to take its own teacher surveys seriously and decide to take action against a professor who is unable to reach students for whatever reason.

But one year of "bad results" doesn't have to mean the next university president gives the faculty member the ol' Donald Trump ("You're fired!") But having a survey in the first place should also correlate with the realization that the Faculty Senate, or a separate board, needs to analyze the data and work out ways to improve faculty-student communication in the classroom.

The Faculty Senate is still deliberating whether to allow students to see the results.

If there is enough involvement in the new system, it's more likely students will be able to review the results.

Making that information accessible to students will only help the process.