Dear Michael Crow,
I am writing to you with a proposition that has the potential to skyrocket the quality of education at Arizona State University.
Let me start by putting things into perspective: When you buy a car, you have access to countless online reviews and expertise regarding the reliability, performance and overall value of the vehicle.
It is quite a significant purchase after all; you want to make sure you’re getting your money's worth. Reviews like these monitor the quality of car companies and motivate them to maintain a certain standard. They have their reputation to protect.
Now, as I’m sure you’re aware, out-of-state tuition at Arizona State happens to cost more than $106,000 for the four years we spend earning our degree. That is the starting price of a 2015 Maserati Quattroporte. Many of my fellow students would agree with me when I say we’re not receiving a Maserati of an education at ASU.
I’ve often felt uninspired and unmotivated in my classes. As students, we tend to just accept this as a trait of higher education, but it doesn’t have to be. When I have a professor who truly has an impact on my learning experience, I feel like I got that Maserati. I’ve had a couple of these throughout my two and a half years here, and I won’t hesitate to express how overwhelmingly thankful I am for them. I would like to be able to write them a rave review for the whole school to see.
As customers of this university, we have the right to make an informed decision on which professor best suits our learning needs. This is why I propose course evaluations be made public. Sites like RateMyProfessor.com lack credibility. If instructors had their reputation to protect, I’m sure they would adhere to a higher standard of education or risk going “out of business,” as car companies do.
One of the factors that contribute to the prestige of The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication is the high standard of professors and instructors.There is time given in class to fill out the course evaluation, and a faculty member comes into the class toward the end of the semester and asks us to review our teacher. I strongly believe this alone contributes greatly to the high quality of education Cronkite provides. If students give an instructor a negative review, they're out of there. I've experienced this first hand.
I was surveying the English department at ASU, and I had professors complain to me about how they’ve never been able to track down the evaluation responses since they went digital. So clearly, there’s already a problem that needs to be resolved.
ASU needs a system that categorizes course evaluation responses into areas like clarity, organization, helpfulness, knowledge absorbed, interesting/engaging, fair grading, textbook requirement, etc. These would be averaged out into an overall score for each course taught by a professor. This way, departments can review professors with the lowest scores and work with them to improve it, or if needed, terminate their employment. This is also an opportunity to reward high-scoring teachers, too.
In addition to these scores, there should be comment fields asking students questions that reference their learning needs, so readers can gauge whether or not the professor will suit theirs. For example:
“I generally have difficulty focusing in lectures and tend to be more engaged with real world examples and when professors utilize multimedia content. Professor Jones did just this.”
This response allows students with similar learning styles to choose the right professor for them: Professor Jones.
With a system like this in place, I strongly believe students will come closer to experiencing a quality of education that correlates to Arizona State's price tag.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss this further.
Sincerely,
Morgan
