THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE

 

                                                                                                FACULTY SENATE

 

Senate Document Number     8209S

 

Date of Senate Approval      04/30/09

 

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Statement of Faculty Senate Action:

 

FWDC 11 Revised:   Revision of the Process for Administering Student Evaluation of Instruction

                               (Revision of SD0308F; Faculty Handbook 3.3.3.1.1) 

 

 

Effective:   Fall, 2009

 

 

Add:                 to the Faculty Handbook, under section 3.3.3.1.1 Student Evaluation of Teaching

                        Effectiveness, to the current text the statements in bold below.

 

 

Student evaluations are to be administered in a minimum of 50% of all courses taught by full-time teaching faculty each semester of the regular academic year. Such courses include only UNC Asheville classes taught on campus where the bulk of the work is done in a classroom or laboratory setting and not independent courses and small research seminars. No class with fewer than six students enrolled at the time of evaluation should be chosen used as one of the classes to be evaluated satisfy the 50% requirement, though faculty are encouraged to evaluate all classes.  Part-time faculty must have evaluations administered in all courses they teach. The evaluation instruments are to be administered in class by a student who is to return the instruments to the appropriate department secretary or program secretary for disposition and analysis. The faculty member being evaluated is to be absent while the evaluation is being conducted. Evaluation instruments should be administered in the last week of class, to insure that students have the maximum amount of information and experience upon which to base their judgments.  The evaluation instrument should be given at the beginning of the class period to help alleviate respondent fatigue and to encourage thoughtful responses. 

 

 

Rationale:

This operationalizes one of the recommendations of the Task Force on Student Rating of Instruction submitted to the Senate in April, 2006. If a standard form is to be used, then some standardized expectations of the courses in which it is used are in order.  Internships, directed readings courses, courses taught in prisons, online courses, etc., are not sufficiently comparable to on-campus, classroom or laboratory courses, for which the form is designed; thus, though faculty are encouraged to evaluate them in suitable ways, they are not the courses that should be reported in satisfaction of the 50% requirement.  Likewise, small numbers raise questions about the reliability of the results.