Comments on Quick Takes: Faculty Object to Bonuses Based on Student Reviews, California Cuts, Boston U. Plans Cuts to Add Aid, U.S. Sues Luna CC, McCain Picks Up Palin's Critique of Fruit Fly Research, Florida Legislators' College Jobs, Rebound for Fiction

• Posted by freshman faculty on January 12, 2009 at 8:40am EST

• At my college the students as customers idea gets favorable remarks from administration too. Hmm, students as customers, as at Sears, where satisfaction is guaranteed. If pay to play becomes policy, I will need to re-think some of my classroom procedures, but hey, we all can adapt. Whatever puts a smile on the customers' faces.

• Florida politics trumps academics
• Posted by Glen S. McGhee , Dir., at Florida Higher Education Accountability Project on January 12, 2009 at 9:05am EST

• Normally, SACS requires that both full-time and part-time instructors have a masters degree, so it is unclear how Coley could be teaching at Chipola without violating SACS credentialing rules.

  Problems like this appear to be widespread, at least in Florida. See SACS own internal study at http://www.sacscoc.org/pdf/COC%20Research%20Project.pdf

  Equally upsetting is how she and other Florida legislators are still not able to understand the public outrage about these kinds of backroom hiring practices, of individuals and institutions using politics for their own personal benefit.

  Clearly, a firewall is needed to protect the public from both predatory politicians and institutions willing to abuse the public trust by hiring lobbyists in this way.

• Your bias is showing
• Posted by Skeptic on January 12, 2009 at 9:05am EST

• The critiques of fruit fly research, lobster-cams, or whatever have absolutely nothing to do with the relative merit of the research itself.

  The Palin, McCain, Coburn, etc. critique is that by awarding research grants through earmarks that do not undergo a competitive peer review rob us all of the assurance that the research projects in question are indeed meritorious.

  The core of the complaint is, for example, that if the fruit fly research is indeed so valuable, it would be better for Congress to establish a flexible pot of money, have a rigorous, independent peer review of research proposals, and fund the best, most necessary projects.

  Relying on a congressman or senator, or their staff, to decide what research projects are most deserving of funds is less than likely to produce a coherent research agenda.

  The condemnation of earmarks, and the inevitable corruption that such process has long brought upon both sides of the Congressional aisle, should not be construed as anti-science, and it is poor journalism to suggest otherwise.

• Apples to ...Appliances
• Posted by Educated SEARS Consumer on January 12, 2009 at 9:40am EST

• I purchesed a refrigerator at SEARS and I was not satisfied. It was one of the biggest hassles of my life...but I did learn not to buy appliances there.

  "Satisfaction Gauranteed"...I don't think so.

  You can return your fridge, but you can't return your education, at least not the part that you actually learn...

• Students as Customers
• Posted by Istvan Berkeley , Assoc. Prof. at The University of Louisiana at Lafayette on January 12, 2009 at 11:15am EST

• When I was in grad school, a local politician made a speech with the role of students as customers as a theme. Following this there was an outbreak of grade appeals on the basis that 'The customer is always right'. Eventually this died out, but it was a pain and a huge waste of time and energy. However, what these events clearly showed was that either the claim that 'students are customers', or the claim that 'the customer is always right' was clearly false. Why are such errors always so appealing?

• SETs are invalid measures of teaching ability
• Posted by disgusted prof. on January 12, 2009 at 11:25am EST

• Folks at Texas A&M have good reason to fear that tieing pay to student evaluations of teaching (SETs) might lead to grade inflation. Valen Johnson has already shown that the current use of student evaluations of teaching has already created a grade inflation crisis in his book "Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education." They should also fear that it will reward teachers for things other than their teaching ability, like their looks. There's plenty of research now that shows that SETs are strongly correlated with such things as an instructor's looks (see Hamermesh and Parker’s demonstration of the correlation between attractiveness and eval scores in the Economics of Education Review 24, 2005, 369-376) as well as their practice of handing out high grades (see some of the articles in The American Psychologist issue on student evaluations is November 1997, Vol. 52, Issue 11 as well as some some followup articles in the November 1998 issue.) For further research on the invalidity of SETs, see the following review: http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/sef.htm.

• Dissing Drosophila
• Posted by Elizabeth on January 12, 2009 at 11:25am EST

• REALLY, John McCain and Sarah Palin. REALLY? Even diehard humanists like me know that fruitfly research is the basis for major advances in biomedical research.

  My late parents and earlier generations of smart, educated GOP voters are rolling in their graves. When did ignorance become synonymous with "conservative"? (Rhetorical question; I know the answer: The last 8 years.)

• Glen - She's not teaching
• Posted by Steve at Private U in SoCal on January 12, 2009 at 1:35pm EST

• Glen - you should read carefully before you hype your agenda. The article says Coley is "special assistant for business and community affairs" at Chipola College. Clearly a staff position.

• Students as customers
• Posted by Max on January 12, 2009 at 1:35pm EST

• Does this mean I can give my students the same rotten treatment I get when I shop?

• What is Said and What is Intended
• Posted by cts on January 12, 2009 at 2:35pm EST

• ... are often different.
  "Skeptic" thinks McCain and Palin were arguing against earmarks for scientific funding. Perhaps they were [perhaps he still is]. However, what they have both said in public seems to consist primarily of mockery of fruit fly research in Frnace and 'lobster-cams.'
  If it is the system to which they object, they should be clear about it - and stop using ridicule of matters of which they are ignorant as a substitute for argument.

• education as product
• Posted by GMS , Faculty at Cochise College on January 12, 2009 at 2:40pm EST

• I understand that students are paying for their education, and this implies a sales/consumer relationship between faculty and student. However, it simply isn’t so. Students are not buying an education; they are paying for the privilege to engage in learning. Education is not a product; it is a process. I understand the need for accountability for faculty; however, reducing learning to a product that demands consumer satisfaction is to say that the consumer (in this case the student) is fully aware of the content and quality of the product. That is –if I buy a refrigerator and it doesn’t meet my expectations, I can return it for one that does. If it breaks, I can return it for a new one. This assumes I know what I need in a refrigerator, and I know how to use it without breaking it. Are we to assume that students know what they should learn in any given class, and they are capable of passing the class if taught by someone else?

• Florida Politics
• Posted by Laurel Semmes , Florida CC Colleague on January 12, 2009 at 4:50pm EST

• Steve - an Adjunct is a teacher.

• Paying politicians
• Posted by Judith on January 12, 2009 at 6:10pm EST

• Interesting. . . at one point the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, who had only a bachelor's degree, was hired to teach a course at a prestigious private four year college in Boston (not in Cambridge). She was paid ten times what I was paid to teach a course at a community college. . . although I had a master's degree and an additional 24 credits.

• Deferred Bonuses
• Posted by ChiSpartan , Alumni Board Member at Michigan State University on January 12, 2009 at 8:05pm EST

• Although impractical to implement, the bonus based on student reviews has a bit of merit if only provided on a deferred basis. On a recent visit to a campus, I recall a conversation with a student who commented that she did not like a current professor very much, but expected that after some time passed, she would truly appreciate the wisdom he imparted.

• sauce for the goose...
• Posted by Prof Ed on January 13, 2009 at 5:15am EST

• Why do we see so many college administrators who advocate rewarding professors based on their popularity with students should and none advocating that their own pay and job security be placed into the hands of faculty and depend on ratings of popularity with faculty?

  The fact we can't seem to find a one of these people advocating to live under the asinine reward system they seek to impose on others says plenty about the substance of their rhetoric.