Hatful of Hollow

The raison d'être at 901 South National is, as famously stated by the previous President, "the production of educated persons." I quite agree, even though it's not always been clear that the Central Administration does. Were this the case, how would the Administration explain its massive outlays of money on wasteful excrescences great and small - like the mediocre basketball teams, the ghastly football team, the oversized marching band, and the Center for (fill in the blank)? I suppose most of the Centers for (fill in the blank) confer at least some benefit on some subsection of the student body. But as long as all of the academic units are being converted into cost centers, why not convert the marching band, the basketball teams, and the football team into cost centers too?

I have fumed elsewhere on this blog about the corporative approach marking many of the usual suspects' well-meaning attempts to raise the level of teaching: Blackboard(tm) bloatware, the Academic Development Center, the late and unlamented Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. I have also railed against the asshats who can't, or can't be bothered to, teach their way out of a paper sack. It's about time I also dump some of the blame on the primary, front line producers of educated persons... the faculty at large. Including yours truly.

If there's one issue that raises faculty hackles faster than merit pay, it's teaching evaluation. One can always blame the Provost, the Dean, or the Department head for any given merit pay inequity. But teaching evaluation cuts to the core of what the average faculty member is at 901 South National to do. It reaches into the castle keep, where every faculty member is King or Queen, with all of the authority and privileges thereby conferred. Seen in this light, it's easy to understand the faculty's reluctance to evaluate itself critically. Mix in the merit pay factor - the results of teaching evaluations can and will be used against one - and the issue becomes one no sane person will go near. I should know. I once served on a University teaching evaluation committee. I met interesting colleagues, did my fair share of the work, and helped produce a set of recommendations that accomplished doodley-squat. A couple of years later, the Faculty Senate Chair called me and refused to get off the phone until I agreed to serve on another such committee. But I got the last laugh. I never attended a single meeting.

That is just one of my personal crimes. I stopped reading my numerical student evaluations years ago, because my department has never normed them. There have been semesters (not under the present Administration, though) when I didn't even give evaluations. It seems that the others in my department share my attitude toward student evaluations: only a couple of colleagues used them in their merit pay applications. It's all a pretty big joke. Oddly enough, I still read the students' written evaluations very carefully. Just last semester, one of my students called me out big time. And quite rightly so. I'm working hard to address it, and I'm confident that I am succeeding. Maybe there's hope for me yet.

Any serious form of teaching evaluation will require peer evaluation. Not surprisingly, that idea makes most faculty run off screaming, and not just the asshats. Let an intruder into the castle keep? Most faculty would answer "Get real." Then factor in the time and trouble involved in constructing and administering a viable peer teaching evaluation program. Can you say SoTL? Even though I've been known to drag colleagues, students, and random passersby into my classroom, that's where I run off screaming. That's where I join the asshats in their incessant chant (incessant bleat, is more like it) of THAT'S TOO MUCH WORK.

In my heart of hearts, I still care about producing educated persons. I firmly believe that constructing and administering a viable peer teaching evaluation program is crucial to that goal. I guess I'm just waiting for a sign to tell me why I should put my gluteus maximus on the line to help accomplish it... instead of holding on to a hatful of hollow.