END-OF-QUARTER EVALUATIONS
Public Education
Fall, 1996
As the end of the quarter approaches, it is time to think about evaluations. Everyone spends a lot of time on evaluations. You should plan accordingly. For the end of fall quarter, you will write three: a self evaluation, an evaluation of your seminar leader, and an evaluation of the other members of your research group.
Self Evaluation
If you are not leaving the program, you will write an informal self evaluation. It must be written prior to the evaluation conference. It must be of such a quality that you can sign it and leave it with your seminar leader at the end of the conference. (You can revise it and submit another version later. But one of the tickets for admission to the conference is a signable draft of a self evaluation.)
If you are leaving the program, you must write a formal self evaluation. You do not have to submit a self evaluation for inclusion in your transcript, but you must submit a self evaluation to be included in your portfolio and in your faculty member's portfolio. (If you submit your evaluation on a formal self evaluation form, your faculty member will submit the evaluation to the Registrar for inclusion in your transcript. If you do not submit it on a formal form, the evaluation stays with the faculty member.) We encourage students to put a self evaluation in their transcripts.
Whether your write a formal or informal evaluation, the problem is the same: You have to write an evaluation of your achievements this quarter. There are Advising Office-sponsored sessions on how to write self evaluations. There are written schemes for writing self evaluations. There are a lot of people who will offer a lot of advice on how to write self evaluations. You might go to the sessions or read the schemes or pursue the advice, but in the end this is just another writing assignment. You are a writer. You face a blank page. You have an anonymous reader about whom you must make certain assumptions. (A personnel director may face your transcript with more or less enthusiasm about the fact that there is no grade point average. A graduate admissions director may want to know whether you did any independent research....) Your task is to make the evaluation interesting and to tell the truth about what you did this quarter.
Here's our advice: Remember that an evaluation is about your achievements. Try not to say what you did not do. Try not to say that you intend to do something differently next year. Think about what you did this quarter (and everyone did a lot). Write about that.
Faculty Evaluation
WRITING your evaluation of your seminar leader: You can write in any form you wish, as long as you type or computer-print. Your signed evaluation of your seminar leader becomes a part of his/her portfolio (as well as a part of your portfolio), and is used in reappointment decisions. The Academic Deans and Provost can consider only the following factors in evaluating and reappointing the faculty. You don't have to cover all these points or use this as an outline (and you should discuss only those matters for which you have evidence), but the faculty are obliged to inform you of the criteria.
A. Teaching:
1. Contribution to the learning environment in programs through:
a. subject matter expertise;
b. interdisciplinary approach to the material;
c. counseling and advising students;
d. facilitation of a stimulating and challenging atmosphere;
e. seminars, lectures, lab or field work, workshops, and individual contracts; and
f. working collaboratively with faculty and students;
2. Fostering students' intellectual and cognitive development;
3. fostering students' communication abilities;
4. the design and execution of parts of a program's curriculum;
5. innovation; and
6. intellectual vitality.
B. Meeting commitments: ...
2. Adherence to covenants and program syllabi and specialty area or graduate program obligations....
4. Writing timely evaluations of each student taught, assessing specifically and substantively the student's understanding of program material.
5. Adherence to the Social Contract, the Affirmative Action Policy, and the Sexual Harassment Policy....
SUBMITTING your faculty evaluation: The College values reciprocity and mutuality. Therefore, most faculty members value receiving your faculty evaluation during the evaluation conference, the conference during which you will receive your evaluation. At the same time as we value reciprocity and mutuality, the Faculty approved a policy that allows you to submit your faculty evaluation to our Program Secretary, Victoria Wakefield. She will give it to your seminar leader after she has your faculty member's evaluation of you. Talk with your seminar leader about his or her practices regarding evaluations received through this alternate route. (In any event, you must have a written, signed evaluation of your seminar leader as one of the tickets to get into the evaluation conference.)
Evaluations of Research Group Members
Your research group should have an evaluation meeting before the end of the quarter. The sole agenda item of this meeting should be the exchange of evaluations. Every member of the group will have written an evaluation of all other group members before the meeting. Tell the truth. And remember that the faculty may use sentences from these evaluations in their final evaluations of students. At the meeting, exchange evaluations. (Sometimes faculty teams give evaluations of all team members to every member of the team. Sometimes faculty teams read evaluations aloud. Sometimes this is done over a meal. You have to decide how best to conduct this meeting.) Each person should bring all of her evaluations (from other team members) to the evaluation conference with her seminar leader.