Would you want Ultra Vires to publish your grades? Well, the Administration does not want faculty grades published either.
Last year, UV published faculty evaluations for the first time. Previously, this information was available at the reference desk at the library where few students accessed it. Furthermore, it is presented by class rather than by teacher.
This newspaper compiled that public data and assembled it into a ranking by professor to give students an objective metric to compare teachers.
It was not a popular move among the Administration.
On May 19th, 2011, the Governing Council adopted the following policy on the disclosure of faculty teaching evaluations: “As the general norm, course evaluation data will be shared with students. (These data may include numerical data and/or written comments.) Individual instructors may opt not to release data for their course(s).”
Editor-in-Chief Matt Brown argues that “Publishing these data in an internal student newspaper is consistent with the policy of the Governing Counsil—a policy that was clearly developed in the interests of transparency.”
Since the publication of the Faculty Report Card last year, the Administration affixed a covering letter to the data asking students “not to reproduce or republish this data in any way.” The have further prohibited students from taking the data to a study carrel; students wishing to view the data must do so while standing at the reference desk.
Assistant Dean Sara Faherty defended the policy by pointing to the great deal of weight the Faculty places on teaching evaluations in performance reviews. “We use it to help determine who gets reappointed, who gets tenure, who gets promoted to full professor.” As a result, Dean Faherty argues that the evaluations, as employment data, should be confidential.
Most people using this employment data for internal faculty staffing decisions already have access to the data. By publishing it, UV is making the evaluations available to institutions other than U of T who may be interested in hiring our faculty.
To respond to this concern, the 2010-11 Faculty Report Card will not be included in the online version of the newspaper. “Although I think reasonable people can disagree about whether this information should be online, I think this is a fair way to respond to faculty concerns,” Brown said.
