Students are expressing mixed reactions to news that course evaluations next semester will only be provided online for the classes of those professors who wish to opt-in to the program.
In registering for courses in the previous two semesters and the upcoming spring semester, students were and are able to access evaluation reports for all Trinity College courses except those of professors who asked for them to be removed.
Arts and Sciences Council members are expected in December to approve a modified system, in which evaluation results are only put online if requested by a professor. Last year, the council only approved the opt-out system on a semester-by-semester basis.
Lyndsay Beal, Duke Student Government vice president for academic affairs, said council Chair and history professor Ronald Witt told her at the beginning of the academic year that a permanent opt-out system would not pass. Since then, she said, her committee has been working to ensure that the council will approve the opt-in system, while still making a last-ditch effort to get the previous system approved.
"It is more important to us that the online evaluations system continues," said Beal, a senior. "We don't want to run the risk of it failing."
Beal said her committee is trying to speak with every member of the council before the December vote. During a presentation at Wednesday's DSG general body meeting, she will ask all legislators to help in such discussions.
In these one-on-one meetings, legislators will try to gauge if there is a chance the professor would vote in favor of an opt-out system, and, if not, try to convince them of the merits of the opt-in system.
"We're trying to do everything we can to make sure that the option that is most beneficial to students happens," Beal said. "We are really going to try to pressure departments to put their evaluations online and discuss methods by which the opt-in is very easy to do."
The academic affairs committee was prepared, she added, to stage a campaign to bring back the opt-out system, including forums, petitions, DSG resolutions and Chronicle advertisements. However, Beal said that Witt advised the committee to save the effort because although faculty members understand that students mostly support the opt-out system, they still were going to vote it down. He instead urged them to concentrate on passing an opt-in system, which he had said should not be a difficult task because professors are unlikely to take away from their peers the option of posting such evaluations.
Students, meanwhile, said they were in favor of whatever type of online course evaluations system would be made available to them.
"Sometimes when you take a course, a professor will be really good or really bad in certain areas, and you want to have the ability to give feedback to others of what worked for you and what didn't," said Tom Walther, a sophomore.
Some said they did not understand why council members would prefer the proposed system over the new one.
"If all the professors have to do is fill out one form, I don't see any real difference between opt-in and opt-out," said junior Dave Allen.
Others, however, said they did not mind that the opt-out system will not be passed.
Sophomore John Cochenour, for example, said he has never consulted course evaluation data in choosing a class. He pointed to many of the same reasons that professors articulate when objecting to the system, especially the subjectivity of the 1 through 5 rankings.
"A '5' means something different to everyone," Cochenour said. "Some people get along with a professor and some don't. What's a lot of work to one may not be to another."
Senior Kat Townes said she would continue to rely upon her undergraduate friends for advice on what courses to take.
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