New evaluations needed

The NIU administration should stop keeping the results of their teacher evaluations secret.

The University Council members want tougher restrictions on the confidentiality of teacher evaluations.

Come on. They should be working on finding a better evaluation system.

According to Sociology professor Eleanor Godfrey, the section four policy, which requires complete confidentiality, is often violated and evaluations are not returned directly to the instructor.

Returned directly to the instructor? Teachers should not even be allowed to see the evaluations and tabulations until after the grades are handed out.

More important, though, is why NIU students aren’t allowed to see how teachers rated in evaluations. The University of Illinois publishes their results in a booklet for all students to view.

Publishing the results would not only help students know which teachers are rated better than others, it might help those who rated poorly to improve their teaching methods.

Maybe if the NIU administration raised this issue, rumors floating around campus that the NIU administration would rather keep the results to themselves instead of having to actually reprimand a professor wouldn’t get started.

The UC would help everyone out if they stopped arguing about useless issues and actually did something that would benefit a student’s education. Then again, we are talking about NIU. Maybe it’s too much to hope for.