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:
Should students should decide a professor's pay and promotions as the author suggests here? While i agree students input is extremely important to improve the quality of education in a university, i strongly believe that professor's pay and promotions should not be tied to students evaluations for the following reasons.
Basing the professor's pay and promotion directly to student's evaluations has some serious drawbacks. In my opinion it reverses the ecosystem, the professor career becomes extremely dependent on students. In a way it curtails the freedom of the professor. For example, if the professor wants to implement a radically different testing scheme that is bound to bring the best out of students, but it is an additional burden to students, the test would obviously bring the professor's rating down. Furthermore, in Hindu vedic teachings, the teacher is considered 'guru', who is placed next to God. Basing my belief on that, i find it unreasonable to evaluate guru's rating by students who receive knowledge from him.
Admittedly, if the system is setup in such a way that student input is not considered, the quality of education can deteriorate. Student's course evaluation gives a very good pointer of how the course is taught and how is received by students. Weeding out all insincere evaluation attempts,one can analyze what is lacking in a course and how the course can be improved. A committee of professors and student chairman can evaluate collectively to improve the quality of course, thereby improving quality of education at the university.
Overall, i agree with the author's conclusion remotely. It is true that balance and checks are necessary for a system to function properly. But, determining professor's pay and promotions primarily on student's evaluation is extreme and has major setbacks as outlined above. Student's evaluation, not professor's pay and promotion, plays a vital role in quality of education and hence can be used collectively with a committee to improve quality of eduction without affecting professor's pay and promotion.
“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:
Should students should decide a professor's pay and promotions as the author suggests here? While i agree students input is extremely important to improve the quality of education in a university, i strongly believe that professor's pay and promotions should not be tied to students evaluations for the following reasons.
Basing the professor's pay and promotion directly to student's evaluations has some serious drawbacks. In my opinion it reverses the ecosystem, the professor career becomes extremely dependent on students. In a way it curtails the freedom of the professor. For example, if the professor wants to implement a radically different testing scheme that is bound to bring the best out of students, but it is an additional burden to students, the test would obviously bring the professor's rating down. Furthermore, in Hindu vedic teachings, the teacher is considered 'guru', who is placed next to God. Basing my belief on that, i find it unreasonable to evaluate guru's rating by students who receive knowledge from him.
Admittedly, if the system is setup in such a way that student input is not considered, the quality of education can deteriorate. Student's course evaluation gives a very good pointer of how the course is taught and how is received by students. Weeding out all insincere evaluation attempts,one can analyze what is lacking in a course and how the course can be improved. A committee of professors and student chairman can evaluate collectively to improve the quality of course, thereby improving quality of education at the university.
Overall, i agree with the author's conclusion remotely. It is true that balance and checks are necessary for a system to function properly. But, determining professor's pay and promotions primarily on student's evaluation is extreme and has major setbacks as outlined above. Student's evaluation, not professor's pay and promotion, plays a vital role in quality of education and hence can be used collectively with a committee to improve quality of eduction without affecting professor's pay and promotion.
