Evaluating professors

One of students' common misunderstandings about life at the Ross School is the importance of teacher evaluations. Students usually state the belief that the School needs to emphasize teaching more in the tenure decision and make student evaluations a more important component of the evaluation of the professor. (To understand the tenure process better, you might want to read this post.) To address the second point first, the student's teaching evaluations are the major teaching-related metric the school uses in the tenure case. We don't use any formal peer feedback; this is actually a point of periodic discussion among the faculty because many think that some peer feedback should be used, but that is a discussion for another time. Thus, student evaluations are of vital importance to a candidate's case. Students should take this responsibility very seriously. The average student evaluation for Ross classes is about a 4.4 (if my memory serves me correctly); anything above 4.2 is considered acceptable without further thought during the tenure decision process.

Now, as to whether teaching should be emphasized more in the tenure decision. Actually, as far as I know, the Ross School emphasizes teaching more than any other major research institution. And, to be clear about it, this is a research institution. In my opinion the whole of the University of Michigan is what it is, and it enjoys the reputation it enjoys, because of the quality of the research the faculty engages in. The Ross School is part of the University and the faculty must fulfill its research obligations. Faculty make names for themselves and for the school by doing useful and widely-referenced research. This attracts other faculty and Ph.D students to the school, helping to perpetuate our name. Teaching doesn't have the same impact; this may not seem fair or right but that's how it is in academics. However, this is not to say that good teachers are not valued here at Ross. They are, and the fact that I received tenure at all shows that teaching is highly valued by the school. Many professors at Ross care deeply about teaching; however, we are a research institution and all that we do must take that into account.

The disconnect that students probably feel results from the fact that, once a professor receives tenure (that is, he or she is an "associate" or "full" professor), then his or her continued employment doesn't really depend on how well he or she performs in the classroom. To some faculty, teaching is how they made a name for themselves in the School and is quite enjoyable. To others, teaching is hard work and something that takes away from the time that they can research. This is one of the reasons that the quality of classes can vary so much.