In what Yeshiva College Dean Norman Adler described as part of an "ongoing process" aimed at improving the overall education offered at Yeshiva and responding to the needs of its students, faculty, and administration, the YC/SSSB uptown senate has introduced new measures to repair the university's teacher evaluation process. The new forms represent a shift in the evaluation procedure, one that now hopes to target more free-style, qualitative responses from students.

Faculty evaluations at institutions of higher learning like Yeshiva typically command three foci - administration, faculty, and students - and function on two planes - both quantitative and qualitative. Results supposedly factor heavily in administrative decision-making, including faculty retention and promotion, conferring of tenure, and salary assessment. Faculty members themselves reportedly use the information provided by the evaluations as well, primarily as a means of comparison with their peers and in improving their own teaching styles, methodologies, and individual courses.

When reevaluating the content of the forms, senate members found that most major universities employ one or more of three basic brands - numerical, free-answer, and student run. Administrative purposes are best served by numerical forms, which often include broad, bottom-line questions, like "Overall, how would you rate the professor?" and "Overall, how would you rate the course?" - and the concrete scales that accompany the questions enable statistical analysis. But even with the aid of computer technology, Adler asserted, "the evaluations process is a huge undertaking." Faculty members largely support the second style, which allows the students to freely answer loosely guided, open-ended questions, such as "What do you think of the professor's style?" and "What are the professors strengths and or weaknesses?" This type of evaluative process demands a tremendous amount of student effort, and in many cases produces more scurrilous gossip than constructive criticism. Nevertheless, free-answer evaluations offer the possibility of qualitative replies, giving the students ample capacity to express their opinions, support, and criticism, and presenting the faculty with a more comprehensive assessment of how their students perceive them and their courses.

Yeshiva College has used the standard numerical form for years. The problems inherent in oversimplified standard forms, however, have only increased with the proliferation of the differently styled courses that are increasingly being offered at Yeshiva. Questions are often hard to interpret or may not be relevant to a specific class or professor; the forms offer no "Not Applicable" column, effectively forcing students to choose from one of several categories, even if none of the choices expresses their actual view. In addition, the scoring produced with numerical forms - an average of the raw score of all the questions from each student in a given course - generates only vague figures. The questions tend to focus on the quantitative aspect of teacher evaluation, leaving little room for substantial, informative responses from the students. Lastly, students complain of having their actual answers distorted by pigeonholed responses, leaving many to wonder if strict statistical analysis truly reflects student opinion. As Lee pointed out, "I think it's fair to say that the faculty is very unhappy about it [as well]."

The dissatisfaction prompted the senate to propose a new form, combining quantitative and qualitative aspects, in an effort to yield results favorable to all three interested parties. The senate's pilot program, which resulted from the work of a senate subcommittee comprised of senate chair David Krieger, Drs. Will Lee and Wayne Schnatter and was "designed to help improve the teaching of a particular course," has focused faculty evaluation on faculty improvement. Deriving much of the new form's content from a report issued by the English Department's Dr. Richard Nochimson, who began work on reforming the evaluations several years ago, the new form includes ten new free-answer questions asking students to assess the readings, assignments, workload, and intellectual growth acquired from the course, as well as major strengths and weaknesses of the course and professor. The form also leaves room for additional student comments. Students in the five courses completing the new forms in the pilot program this semester will also fill out the standard numerical forms, thereby providing the administration with the quantitative evaluative response they still use. In line with the pilot program's main thrust of improving the instructor and the course, the forms will be sent directly to the faculty to allow the teachers to respond directly to their students' replies; they will not use the Deans Office as an intermediary.

Students have historically expressed concern with regard to the effect that answering free-response forms in an honest, and often brutal, style might have on their grades. As a result of the anticipated worry, professors will not see these evaluations until they have submitted their grades.

Members of the senate subcommittee have expressed their hope that the students will learn from this developing process that the evaluation process, even in its old form, should be taken seriously. "They're not a joke," emphasized Lee. Indeed, as Yeshiva College continually increases class offerings and course sophistication, the forms should serve not only to impact on faculty salary and tenure, but also to shape innovative additions to Yeshiva's educational environment.