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ESSAY QUESTION:
“The mission of a university is to educate its students. Therefore, a professor’s pay and promotions should be based primarily on students’ evaluations of his or her courses.”

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.

MY RESPONSE:
The mission of a university is to educate its students. Therefore, a professor's pay and promotions should be based primarily on student's evaluation of his or her courses. This is a very tricky statement. I disagree with the above statement and present some reasons.

First, the mission of the university os not only to educate the students but also they are the hubs for the country growth either technical or other aspects. For example in United States and Europe most of the universities have contacts with the government and private companies to perform research in science and technology. This has helped not only the companies grow but also helped the country there by helping the mankind to lead a better life. Imparting knowledge is one of the goals of the university, but its not the only mission of the university.

The professor is the single point of contact for the companies contacting the university. And the professors responsibility is not only to deliver the course work but also to actively work with the government and private companies. So evaluating the professor's pay and promotions purely based on student's evaluation of the professor's courses is not legitimate.

Second, Students can be biased in evaluating the courses. For example, In my bachelor's when we were asked to rate the course of the professor, most of the students gave a good rating to a professor who is close to the students. The better the relation of the professor with the students the better the grade for his course. So the promotions and pay of the professors should not be primarily based on the student's evaluations. The professor who is busy cannot spend much time with the students, it doesn't mean that professor does not educate his students well.

The professor's pay and promotions should be evaluated taking in to account wide range of aspects such as quality of the courses, the ways in which the professor is helping the university to achieve its mission of imparting knowledge as well as the support it provides for the government and private companies.