Senate discusses success of online evaluations
When course evaluations come around each semester, few students realize their answers are used to provide USU with valuable and comparative information.
During Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting, university Provost Raymond Coward said to faculty that because course evaluations have recently been transitioned to the Web, data collected and compared through the IDEA database shows that USU courses lie comprehensively above the national average by 53 percent.
“That’s pretty good,” Coward said. “One of the reasons that the Senate Committee … was attracted by the IDEA instrument was because of the national comparison.”
Many other universities across the country are users of the same database, which allows administrators to compare USU’s progress to others, Coward added.
On an individual level, categories that topped the national average included progress on relevant objectives with a score of 53 percent, excellent teacher scoring at 60 percent and excellent courses at 52 percent.
Though each score was lowered to take into account students’ self-reported motivation, work habits and class sizes, the adjusted scores were still high enough to top the national average, Coward said. Without the adjustment, however, USU would have been ahead by 74 percent overall.
The IDEA database also allows faculty members to look at their own individual scores on a national level, Coward said. Faculty members are able to see if they are in the top 10 percent, bottom 10 percent or somewhere in between.
“This is the kind of data that we didn’t have before,” Coward said. “This is the kind of data that we do have now.”
Coward also shared information on the legislative push to dissolve the tenure process in Utah. The bill has been written to exempt USU and the University of Utah because of their large efforts to keep tenure, Coward said.
“We were the ones who pushed back so hard last year that rather than address our concerns, they just put us aside and went after the other six institutions,” Coward said.
In last year’s legislative session it was proposed that tenure be discontinued for all future professors. However, the bill was turned down by a 9-3 majority from the House Education Committee.
This year’s bill is only two pages long, and, while not many details are known, USU is only mentioned in the second paragraph as an exception to the bill, Coward said.
“I guess at one level we can have a sigh of relief,” Coward said. “On the other hand, it’s obviously a strategic move to pick off a lesser set of institutions before moving on to the big target, which, of course, is the University of Utah and us.”
During the meeting, the Senate discussed the creation of a new faculty award as a part of the annual Robin’s Awards, for faculty contribution to shared university governance.
“You know, we have a lot of awards on this campus,” said Senate President Glenn McEvoy. “There are awards for teaching, awards for research, awards for advising and good graduate systems. But the faculty has been talking about the lack of recognition to someone who devotes a significant amount of time and effort to the university through shared governance.”
Though still in the developmental stage, criteria for the award are being discussed by the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, with a circulating draft and feedback coming in, McEvoy said.
“We may not be able to pull this off for this year,” McEvoy said. “But, if not, certainly by next year.”
Other items discussed at the meeting included a review of the graduate program and the implementation of the new Common Hour next year.
– allie.jeppson3@gmail.com