Thousands of Scantrons went to waste last week. Students duly
penciled in circles and made comments reviewing the courses and
educators to whom they gave their fees and 10 weeks of time and
energy.
Sadly, students will never see the results of this valuable
data.
The current evaluation process, useful only to the faculty and
administrators who truly care about student input, falls
dramatically short of its true potential and leaves students
stranded without the information necessary to maximize their
education.
Ten years ago, completed evaluations were available to students.
UCLA’s Office for Instructional Development, with the
permission of the professor, distributed evaluations in booklet
form until the program was discontinued in 1995 after being deemed
too costly. Since then, there has been sporadic talk, and little
action, on ways to create a useful and fair system that lets
student voices be heard ““ by their teachers, department and,
most importantly, by their peers.
It is time for results.
Students should not be left in the dark about the quality of
professors and courses available when planning their schedules.
Independent Web sites like bruinwalk.com help, but too few
students contribute. UCLA, ideally through the cooperative lobbying
of the Academic Senate and student government, should restructure
and standardize the evaluation process to insure the voices of
students don’t fall on deaf ears ““ or worse, are muted
by a lazy bureaucracy.