| Faculty senate approves new student evaluation form, to debut fall 2006 by matt getty Faculty senators approved a streamlined and less ambiguous Student Evaluation of Teaching form (SET) at last week’s Faculty Senate meeting. Scheduled to debut in fall 2006, the shorter form features a more consistent response scale, clearer separation between the course and faculty assessment sections, and more carefully worded questions. The narrative response section of the form remains unchanged. The approval of the new SET marks the end of a three-year process that grew out of faculty concern over the original form’s effectiveness and a growing body of research into best practices for such forms. Led by mathematics and statistics professor Lyn Stallings, a faculty committee, which also included staff from the Office of Institutional Assessment, began overhauling the 15-year old SET form in 2003. Nearly 2,000 students filled out the revised form in 2004 as part of a pilot program that assured the committee of the new SET’s effectiveness. Stallings also submitted the form to representatives from graduate and undergraduate student government for their input months before last week’s senate vote. Though she feels that the new form is a marked improvement over the original, Stallings stressed that the university still cannot rely on SETs as the only measure of teaching effectiveness. “We feel like we’ve got a clean form now, but that form only represents the students’ opinions of teaching,” she explained. “We’re missing a lot of other dimensions. What we have to discuss now is what are those other dimensions and how should they be included in the promotion process.” Also at last week’s Faculty Senate meeting, Don Myers, vice president of finance and treasurer, delivered his annual report on university finances. In addition to discussing the university’s financial health and future construction projects, Myers answered questions about his office’s oversight of presidential spending. The governance changes currently being discussed by AU’s Board of Trustees and the campus community, he said, will give the Office of Finance and Treasurer increased oversight of such spending in the future. |
