Student leaders are working on a resolution to move professor evaluations online and to make them mandatory for all students to complete.
The University Park Undergraduate Association is discussing the possibility of requiring students to submit the evaluations, which are called Student Rating of Teaching Effectiveness (SRTE), before they are given access to their final grades available on eLion.
The idea originated with the recently dissolved Undergraduate Student Government (USG), but UPUA has adopted it as a project as well.
Ricardo Torres, UPUA academic affairs chairman, said requiring students to fill out the SRTE before accessing their grades is just one option for increasing the number of students who participate.
"My biggest concern is making sure that anonymity is kept at all times," Torres said.
Torres said it is important that students feel they can be open and honest about the quality of their professors.
Putting the SRTE online would increase submission rates and reduce accountability, which would better determine an accurate rating of a professor, Torres said. Other schools have put their teacher evaluations online and the number of responses increased by 60 percent, he added.
Jennifer Litzenberger (freshman-nursing) said she wasn't sure how honest students would be if the SRTE was mandatory since students might be inclined to randomly fill in answers instead of taking the time to give their actual opinion.
"If they are mandatory, you might get a false outcome," Litzenberger added. Instead, Lizenberger suggested that professors be evaluated mid-semester so they would have a chance to change "anything they're doing badly."
Alexis Dimou (junior-human development and family studies) said some students don't care about the SRTE and fill in answers just to get through it.
"Not a lot of students take it seriously," she said.
Nick Stathes, who was the former president of now-dissolved USG, added that the way the SRTE is dis-
tributed now results in a smaller sample size.
"It's a good idea to put the SRTE online. It's the best way to ensure students can fill them out," he said.
While the USG's academic assembly was primarily working on the proposal, the dissolution of USG won't affect any initiatives and many of the projects will be transferred to UPUA, Torres added.
Mallory Gold, director of media relations for UPUA, said the academic assembly is also considering compiling a resource catalog with ratings of Penn State professors.
If that catalog is complete, students could be given access to it, she said.
"[SRTEs] hold a lot of weight," she said.
Due to upcoming meetings with academic affairs, faculty senate and student surveys, changes to the SRTE will probably not occur until the 2008-2009 academic year, Torres said.
