SCE Task Force Meeting
Minutes
December 20, 2007

Members Present:
Howard Erdman, Chair  Wayne Carroll, Education   Lynne Bidwell, Library   Bill Clouser, Social Sciences	Dawnjeana Stevens, Distance Learning Elizabeth Skendzic, Natural Sciences Susan Odom, Nursing and Health Sciences Chris Riggs, Social Sciences
Guest:  J. Anthony Fernandez, Provost

Minutes

Minutes from December 13, 2007 meeting not yet received.

Provost Comments                                                                             

Provost began by noting the fact (mentioned at an earlier meeting) that
Howard Erdman had submitted a request via the UAP process to fund some
of the Task Force’s recommendations, including a switch from online to paper
evaluations.  While the FARG deemed the SCE request a lower priority than
other requests, the Provost assured Task Force members that their work is
valued and that he will do his best to insure that at least some of the Task
Force’s recommendations are funded.

Task Force decided that it would draft both a report and a proposed list of
new questions for the SCE to be submitted to the president by
February 22, 2008, the deadline given in the PG57 Initiative. 

Proposed Use and Misuse Policy

The Chair proposed the following use policy, based on standards of
Northwest Commission of Colleges and Universities (NWCCU):

“Sees, along with other criteria, shall be used to aid identifying areas of
improvement in a faculty member’s performance.”

Regarding the proposed misuse policy (see attached), a concern was
expressed that the 2^nd bullet point (related to response rates) might be
interpreted as allowing faculty the option of not administering SCEs.  There
was general agreement that courses need to be evaluated but that faculty
should not be punished for response rates, especially since students are told
 repeatedly that participation in voluntary.  Task Force agreed that
completion of SCEs should be a requirement of students.  To that end,
members voted unanimously:

1.      That the SCE directions that IRPA provides to faculty to read
to students should state, “we require all LCSC students to
provide constructive feedback about the quality of the
courses…” instead of “we ask all LCSC students…”

2.      That the following wording on the SCE webpage
(www.lcsc.edu/sce) be deleted:  “The Course Evaluation
system is voluntary.  You may leave responses on individual
items black if they do not apply or if you do not wish to
comment on an area.”

However, members did not agree on what penalty, if any, should be
imposed on students that do not complete SCEs.

Members voted unanimously to accept misuse policy proposals with
the changes noted above regarding the 2^nd bullet point.

Proposed Interpretation Policy

Task Force does not have a “straw man” for SCEs interpretation. 
Members did generally agree that SCEs should NOT be used to compare
one faculty member to another and should NOT be used to compare one
division to another. 

It was also agreed that faculty need to be assured that SCEs will not
be used to “beat them up.”  The goal is to improve faculty teaching.

Next Meeting and Homework

The next meeting will be on January 17, 2008.  Before that meeting,
members are asked to:

1. Submit schedules to the Chair in order to determine a regular
   meeting time for the spring semester. 

2. Develop at least three questions for each of the conceptual items
   agreed to at the November 29, 2007 meeting. 

Possible Language for Policies on Misuse of Student Course
Evaluations (SCEs)

·         Evaluation of faculty teaching never shall rely solely upon
SCEs.  SCEs shall be combined with peer observations,
supervisor observations, portfolios, syllabi, and/or other
such materials/techniques.  Each division shall determine
the appropriate combination of materials/techniques to be
used for the evaluation of faculty teaching. 

o        Rationale/Justification:  Students may not be able to
evaluate certain important elements of faculty’s
teaching (such as level of knowledge, keeping
current with latest research on the subject,
conforming with college policies, etc.).   Also,
relying on multiple sources of information is
consistent with Standard  4.1 of the Northwest
Commission of Colleges and Universities (NWCCU),
which states that “Multiple indices are utilized by
the administration and faculty in the continuing
evaluation of faculty performance.”[1]  The
practice is consistent with current scholarly
thinking; as author Ken Bain notes, “Any
good [evaluation] process should rely on
appropriate sources of data….  Student
remarks and ratings, in other words, are not
evaluations; they are one set of data that
an evaluator can take into consideration.”[2]

 ·         Faculty never shall be rewarded or penalized in any way
based on SCE response rates. 

o        Rationale/Justification.  NWCCU’s “Policy 4.1:
Faculty Evaluation” makes clear that student
evaluations of faculty are intended to improve
faculty teaching.  The policy makes no reference
to response rates offering any indication of the
quality of faculty teaching.[3]  LCSC Policy #2.112,
the only section in the policy manual that refers
to SCEs, stipulates that student evaluations will
used for faculty evaluations.  There is, again,
no reference to response rates. The instructions
given to students regarding the Fall 2007 SCEs
at the SCE webpage states that “The Course
Evaluation system is voluntary” (emphasis
mine).[4]  Instructions that the faculty are given
to pass along to students make clear that
completing the evaluations is optional:  “Each
semester, we ask all LCSC students to provide
constructive feedback about the quality of
the courses and instructional techniques for
each of their classes” (emphasis mine).[5] 
If the college does not mandate that students
complete SCEs and in fact specifically tells
students that participation is “voluntary,”
then it seems incongruous (at best) to reward
or punish faculty based on whether students
fill out the evaluations.

·         SCEs never shall be used in a way that violates the
principles of academic freedom.

o        Those principles, according to NWCCU and the
American Association of University Professors
(AAUP), afford faculty the freedom “to examine
and test all knowledge appropriate to their
discipline or area of major study” as well as
“wide latitude to decide how to approach a
subject, how best to present and explore
the material, and so forth.”[6]  Consistent
with such statements, LCSC Policy # 2.101
guarantees faculty “freedom in the classroom
in discussing the subject material.”   In
addition, author Robert E. Haskell notes that
academic freedom has been “viewed as a
right which the courts have deemed must
not be violated in the performance
evaluation process.”[7] 

[Perhaps add rules on misuse to Policy #2.112, possibly between
sections 1.1 (General Guidelines for procedures) and 1.2 (Timelines).]