In the February issue of Ultra Vires, I was rather surprised to see that the front page had an article titled, “Alarie: LRW Feedback Positive.” The article states that the evaluations the administration received from the 1L class was “very good feedback” and that the course was “highly rated”. My surprise stemmed from the fact that I thought the vast majority of 1Ls openly disliked the course, given how often people around me complained about on a regular basis last semester. In fact, when I asked one of my peers to respond to that headline, she cried out, “Lies!”
There are numerous possible explanations for the discrepancy in the feedback Professor Alarie received and my understanding of the 1L sentiment for the course. Those who dislike a course are always going to be far more vocal than those who are indifferent or are content with it. Once a course is completed, students may feel it’s futile to spend their time airing their grievances on a course evaluation form. It’s also entirely possible that the vast majority of 1L students enjoyed the course, gave the administration positive feedback, and yet whined and moaned about the class due to the fact that we 1Ls just love to complain about everything. Hell, I love complaining so much, I’m doing it as an extracurricular activity right now.
Regardless of the reasons why the administration got the feedback it did; it was very concerning to read about the seeming indifference of the administration to the SLS town hall meeting about LRW and to negative feedback about the course overall. My esteemed colleague/look-a-like-but-not-actually Bhuvana Sankaranarayan covered the major issues that came up in the town hall in the previous issue of UV, so I will not regurgitate them here. In summary, the feedback at the town hall was composed mainly, if not entirely, of criticisms of the course and suggestions for improvements.
But in response to being told that the town hall meeting was incredibly negative feedback, it appeared that the administration was almost dismissive towards the meeting as a whole. The quote that motivated me to write this article is when it was said that the meeting was a biased sample because “those who show up [to a town hall] have an axe to grind”.
I attended that town hall. I can assure you all, I have no axe to grind. I can barely use my kitchen knives. I didn’t fail the memo. I thought my TA for the course was stellar (rock on Mike Pal!). I simply thought that there was a lot of room for improvement in the course’s content and structure and went to the town hall to express that. So I don’t particularly appreciate that me, and the 14 or so other students who tried to take an initiative in our education were seen as some irrationally angry, biased, sample of the student body that was not reflective of our peers. Of course students said negative things during the town hall meeting; these meetings are to discuss ways to improve a course, not for us to pat ourselves on the back about how amazing UofT already is.
Regardless of how much work went into the planning LRW, and how much positive feedback we 1Ls apparently gave, the class was not going to be perfect this year. It was the trial run of a new course. It was going to be flawed. When has the first time of anything ever been good [that’s what s/he …]?
But having a rough first year is not a problem. What is not conducive is the unwillingness from the administration’s end to discuss with students what didn’t work well or to even, as of the writing of this article, reveal to us the feedback they received and their plans for LRW going forward. There’s always room for improvement in any course. But by simply telling the student body that everything in the realm of LRW is sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, we won’t get that improvement.
Regards,
Katherine Georgious
