The saddest and most profound transformation I have witnessed nationwide in my many decades in higher education is professors’ increasing fear of college students. This fear, borne of the increasing ...

Near the end of each quarter, UW students receive multiple emails prompting them to fill out course evaluations. How those evaluations are implemented and utilized varies across departments and ...

The teaching evaluation system consists of three components: student evaluation, peer or colleague evaluation, and self-evaluation. The evaluation of teaching provides information that instructional ...

Teaching is a bottomless well of unrealized potential – this is what makes it so interesting – but overall, I’m pleased with this semester’s results. There’s a handful of things I’m Monday-morning ...

After more years in academe than I care to admit, holding positions from faculty member to department chair to dean and even interim provost for a long year and a half, I have witnessed more faculty ...

The Gainesville Sun broke a story on July 19 that has potentially significant implications for postsecondary instructors across the country. The story concerned a lawsuit brought by Darnell Rhea, an ...

Sean Decatur is the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Oberlin College. Updated September 26, 2012, 3:25 PM As a faculty member, I have ...

Two recent papers argue that using student surveys to evaluate professors is fundamentally flawed. At Denny's, diners are asked to fill out comment cards. How was your meal? Were you satisfied with ...

Not too long ago, researchers at a large Midwestern university arranged to have a speaker give the same lecture to 154 undergraduates enrolled in eight sections of a required course. Or almost the ...

Aaahh. It’s evaluation season. Time for the tables to be turned on you. Yes, you, the professor. You thought you were being so clever by trying to institute some kind of an email policy: Telling your ...

Maki O’Bryan faced the teacher from hell her junior year at George Washington High School in San Francisco.The teacher was constantly late to class, talked about her personal life, put down her ...

Sean Decatur is the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Oberlin College. Updated September 26, 2012, 3:25 PM As a faculty member, I have ...