NIU teachers are sounding off in favor of the Student Association teacher evaluations, but fewer than 10 percent of faculty have signed up to participate in the voluntary program.

Of NIU’s 1,300 faculty members, SA Academic Affairs adviser Colleen Halliman received evaluation permission from only 107 teachers. Because these teachers teach more than one class, 220 classes will be evaluated and the results will be published in the spring.

“Our department has a very complete evaluation already,” said Mathematics professor John Beachy, who did not participate, “I had reservations about using extra class time.”

Beachy said he will participate in the future if this semester’s SA evaluations prove to be successful. “In general, I’m in favor of the effort the SA is making,” he said.

Beachy has taught at NIU for more than 20 years. He currently teaches College Algebra and Algebra I.

Assistant Sociology Professor Charles Cappell who did not participate in the evaluations said he generally believes in supporting these efforts. “It’s an instrument that would give a minimal amount of information to the student,” he said.

Cappell suggested changing the question which asked the student to rate if the instructor placed reasonable demands on the student. He said sometimes a teacher can come out negative if they require a lot of homework for their course.

“How much the student expected to learn,” would have been a better question, he said.

Cappell has taught at NIU for a year-and-a-half. He currently teaches sociological inquiry and survey research.

Geology Professor Eugene Perry said he did not participate because he has very small classes, however, he would have participated if he had larger classes.

“It is a reasonable idea,” Perry said. “I’m not sure that the mechanical system used is a great idea.”

Perry has taught at NIU for 18 years. He currently teaches environmental geology, physical geology, geochemistry, and economical chemistry.

Educational Psychology Professor Tom Roberts said he agreed to participate in the survey. “It looked like a good chance for me to get some feedback and for the students to get a better perspective on their classes,” he said.

Roberts has taught at NIU for 21 years. He teaches educational psychology.

alliman said she is open to all suggestions, especially because this is the first time these evaluations have been done. She said she has been getting suggestions on some of the permission slips teachers are sending in.

One professor suggested using scantron to tally students’ opinions. Since evaluations hadn’t begun yet, Halliman immediately changed her previous plan to have students circle their response.

Other suggestions include: reversing the order on the answer scale to make number 1 represent “strongly agree”; publishing the syllabus of each course with the evaluation; and giving the SA prepared evaluations at the same time as the faculty evaluations.