Tables turn when students grade college profs

Does the process benefit students?
Many colleges have become more sophisticated about evaluations. For instance, Upson-Saia said Occidental has added questions about student participation, to help tease out whether negative comments are coming from people who were engaged in the course.

Yet North Carolina State English professor Cat Warren, who also heads the state chapter of the American Association of University Professors, still finds aspects of the evaluation process troubling. Too often, she says, colleges use evaluations as a crutch to replace the genuine mentoring younger teachers need.

It can, when professors know their teaching counts. Many universities, including Northwestern and Colorado, make the results of student surveys available to students choosing classes. At some campuses, student governments publish similar statistics. One could argue the overall effect is good — more students end up in better-taught classes.

At the University of Texas, while students have free access to course evaluation ratings, most still pay $5 per semester for a service from the Web site pickaprof.com, Hamermesh says. The reason: The private service publishes grade distributions for classes, helping students identify the easy rides.

Shulman considers such Web sites as pickaprof.com and RateMyProfessor.com "side effects of what is overall a very healthy phenomenon."

"Teaching is so important it's got to go public," he said. "Once it does, you've got to be prepared for some people to like it more than others. That's the deal."

Upson-Saia says she often finds her students' comments helpful — and tries to brush off the occasional negative ones.

"I'm willing for them not to like me in order to teach them something," she said.

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