Student opinion surveys

[Kotik]

Two of the best rated professors are out of job. I don't even want to comment. graemlins/headshake.gif I guess student opinion surveys are just waste of time :(

Married professors out of job (http://www.cm-life.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/28/3eaca775c41c2)

[Dave]

Never had them but once again shows the University would rather have hard nosed profs who don't really help out the students much. Its all about $$ and all we do is provide the cash flow for CRAP

[[Gary]]

I've come to the decision, this university will be a shitload of bricks soon. We used to be a very affordable college and now we're a bunch of bullshit. Firing good professors, increasing parking passes, increasing tution, plenty more, but i'm going off topic. Anyway, I think students will learn more if they have a chance to evaluate what they've done wrong and are able to correct it.

[candace]

so let me see if i've got this right...student survey results go up, students are supposedly learning more/better, students can improve on what they've done, many students like these profs...yet they are getting fired...hmm...doesn't exactly make much sense to me...am i missing something?

[Kotik]

Last semester my gf had ENG 201 with Ralph Baber. She was late with one of her papers, so she called Ralph at home. It was Saturday night, but he invited us both to his house. He checked her paper and gave her his suggestions. I was stunned that any teacher could be so kind to take out of his personal time to work with a student. Any professor who puts his home phone # on the syllabus loves his job and his students. I am feeling so bad. :( They not only fired Ralph, but his wife as well. What kinda of punishment is that? Geez graemlins/headshake.gif

[Verso]

Gosh this really is sad. I was all set to take Karen V.'s ENG 201 class next fall, even if I had to rearrange my schedule - all because she was highly recommended by friends of mine who've had her.

Holder's concern with "the direction in which the university is going" (http://www.cm-life.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/28/3eaca775c41c2) and "grade inflation" (http://www.cm-life.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/04/28/3eaca775c41c2) is both misguided and pedantic.

I don't know about this "product" method vs. the "process" method, but it seems very clear that the MORE you write, the better you'll be at it. In other words, a teacher who will let you do many rewrites and offer criticism at each stage can teach you infinitely more than teachers who use the CMU-approved "turn it in once and forget it" process.

Maybe the "product" method is better for Math or Chemistry, but I don't see how any reasonable person could argue that it's appropriate, or better, for a writing class. It seems to me that the product method would offer students very little chance to improve their writing. Instead, then, students are merely graded based on the writing ability they came into the class with. What's the point of that? CMU is not a giant, 4 year testing center; it's a university, and should be concerned with developing students' abilities.

From my ENG 101 experience, and from having talked to people in ENG 201, many teachers - apparently the ones Holder will be retaining - are more concerned about having too much work to do. It's simple: if every student rewrote every paper once, that's twice as much work for the teacher. Apparently some teachers are willing to do that extra work - and CMU is willing to punish them for it. But - and here we can talk about grade inflation - should it be any surprise that a teacher who puts in twice the effort, and spends twice the time helping students refine their writing, would produce students who earn higher grades? No, of course not.

And that's what's wrong with Holder's apparently single-minded focus on grade inflation; he's lost his ability to recognize quality. That's the big fear I have of this War on Grade Inflation: the easiest and most destructive path CMU can take to "correct" the problem will be to do away with the truly exceptional teachers who produce truly exceptional students.

Too bad there's nothing we can do to appeal this decision.

At the very least, we should email Holder and tell him what we think: holde1s@cmich.edu

[TheWho]

Originally posted by candace:
so let me see if i've got this right...student survey results go up, students are supposedly learning more/better, students can improve on what they've done, many students like these profs...yet they are getting fired...hmm...doesn't exactly make much sense to me...am i missing something?Thats typical CMU and where its headed like Gary said. I am so hoping to get out of here as soon as possible.