As each semester at the University of Memphis winds down, the administration reminds students to complete a student evaluation of teaching effectiveness, commonly referred to as a SETE.
Many students fill them out just so they can see their grades early but don't actually know what happens to the evaluations once they are submitted.
The department chairs, deans, administrators and the professors can see the SETEs, according to Melissa Buchner, director of Academic Affairs Administration. While professors directly see evaluations from their students, they are presented anonymously. That way the professor won't know who submits responses.
Department chairs evaluate professors on an annual basis and SETEs are just one factor in the process.
"In our department, professors are evaluated for their contributions in three areas - research, teaching and service," Matthias Kaelberer, chair of the political science department, said. "Obviously, SETE evaluations are an important component of a faculty member's annual evaluation in the area of teaching. However, we also look at other teaching-related data, such as course success rates and our own departmental mid-semester student survey."
In the event of poor SETE scores, Kaelberer works with the professors so that they can improve in the future.
"If a professor gets a low score on the SETEs, the first step is to identify the causes," he said. "This is usually part of my conversations with faculty members over their annual evaluations. Very often we identify adjustments that can be made to improve teaching performance. Persistently weak teaching evaluations, however, can have negative implications for tenure and promotion decisions."
In addition to avoiding low scores, Kaelberer emphasized the importance of positive evaluations. He said that professors must have strong evaluations to receive a very good or exceptional annual evaluation.
Like many students, senior computer science major Samuel Morgan said he always completes his SETE evaluations so that he can get early access to his grades.
However, Morgan said that he does take the evaluations seriously and expects that professors do as well.
In terms of how the SETE system could be improved, Kaelberer said that he wants to see higher response rate from students, as well as more written comments.
There is an optional portion of SETE evaluations in which students can write in their thoughts on the teacher's overall effectiveness or ineffectiveness.
Morgan said he usually doesn't do the optional portion but can make an exception for excellent professors.
"If I feel like I didn't have to go home and teach myself out of the book, I'll fill it out," he said.
