What to do when politics rear their ugly head your way?

[WornOutGrad]

Hi Everybody, I'll just shoot straight. This morning, I just got my first, concentrated dose of academic politics. Here's what happened:

Last semester, I took a class with a professor who has some serious strengths (organization, useful and relevant assignments, etc), and some serious weaknesses (approachability is the main one here). The class was overall good. When it was time for us to do our student evaluations, I filled out mine fairly and honestly, highlighting both the strengths and weaknesses of this particular instructor, knowing that their career could hang in the balance. I did this because I'm a christian first, and then a grad student next (actually, I'm a fiance, then a good friend, then a grad student... I know, I should be kicked out for that lack of priority alone, huh). But I gave this instructor "5's" where she deserved them, and "2's or 1's" where she deserved them. Here's the kicker though, this professor IS MY ADVISOR (and a collective gasp fills the room... I know, dramatic, huh?). I don't feel bad at all for giving an honest evaluation of a person whose opinion I care about (even to the point that I was near suicidal when she called me a waste of money once), and it was only in a constructive manner.

Okay, now fast forward to today. The moment I get to my office, she asks me to her office, closes the door, and then grills me on what I put down. She stated that there was evidence that someone had changed the evaluations, and she needed to know if there was any area that I marked her highly on. She didn't get mad at me for my feedback or anything, but wanted to know if I marked her high on anything, so she could use it as evidence to say that her evals were doctored. THIS WAS THREE MONTHS AGO, so I don't remember what I gave her. But I honestly did tell her the areas that I would give her high marks, and I even asserted that. But I feel in an extremely awkward position.

I'm not a big fan of that whole "team player" mentality if it means I have to compromise my ethical and moral beliefs. I will be honest and objective in all situations, and if any employer has a problem with that, well then I don't want to work with them anyway. That goes for this situation too. I'd rather throw this away than my principles and ethics, so I don't feel bad about what I am doing. With that said, I feel extremely awkward and a little scared. With only nine months to go until I graduate, this is the worst time for something like this to happen (well I guess it's better than right before I defend, but still). I guess I want to know what I should do, and how screwed am I really. The truth is that I'm not willing to lie or cheat in this situation. Even if it means poverty, I'd rather be at peace with my soul than rich and troubled.

[Agradatudent]

I read that and didn't see any glaring problems... Unless you told you how poorly you marked her without any tact you should be okay. I as a rule only give anything below a 3 to professors I despise, and in general nothing lower than a 4. As a teacher myself, it's bullshit how critical students can be without having any idea about what the job entails...

[Eigen]

I can think of very few things that would make me mark down a 1 or a 2 on evaluations. And if I felt that strongly negative about them, there's little chance I'd be working for them or care what they thought.

In the way evaluations are used, anything less than an average of 4s or up is likely going to raise flags for the professor at a great number of schools.

But I don't see how any of what you report is some huge rearing ugly head of politics. Your advisor, who trusts you and knows you, thinks that someone is screwing her over in administration. Knowing you well enough, she asked if there were any areas on which you gave her high marks so she can use it as evidence in her defense. Since there were areas you gave her high marks in, you report those. She didn't ask what marks you gave her overall, she didn't ask where you gave her low marks, or how low the marks were that you gave her.

But I completely agree with Toypajme... I've gotten some 2s and 3s for things that were completely beyond my control happening once or twice in a semester- classrooms being double booked, technology in the classroom not working, etc.

Edited March 20, 2012 by Eigen

[robot_hamster]

Aren't course evaluations supposed to be anonymous?

[TropicalCharlie]

Aren't course evaluations supposed to be anonymous?

Even if this prof is your advisor, IMO what she did was unethical. Evals are supposed to be anonymous, so that evaluators feel safe to write anything they want without being swayed to write only positive things and fear of retaliation. If your advisor suspected that her evals were tampered with, she should have taken up the issue with the person in charge of them. She should not have put you in the awkward situation by asking you directly for how you rated her. Climbing up the academic ladder, most professors have learned to grow thick skin and should be used to hearing things that don't agree with them. Whether she learns from her evals and makes improvements is another issue, but it is certainly not yours to worry about.

[Eigen]

At least in our department, with 1-3 grad students in a class, evaluations aren't anonymous at all. Just as advisors grow a thick skin to hearing things that don't agree with them, as a grad student you should get used to doling out fair and even handed assessment that you don't mind signing your name to.

That said, she didn't really ask directly how you rated her. In your words, she "didn't get mad at you for your feedback, but wanted to know if you marked her highly in anything" (bolding mine). You didn't have to talk about anything you didn't mark her highly on. You just had to pick one or two things you did mark her highly on for her to check.

And as to taking it up with the person in charge? If she thinks the person in charge was who mucked with her reviews, she'd want some kind of evidence before she went over their head. Grad student-facutly relationships aren't like undergrad-faculty relationships. There's a give and take, and it's more of a collegial relationship than one of student-instructor. Along with that comes the fact that occasionally your advisor will ask you for help with something that another peer might- in this case, helping her out of a sticky situation if you had any definitive evidence to share.

[WornOutGrad]

Thanks for the posts guys. As for the whole "never below a 4" thing, I personally see it the same way I do grades. If you are only going to give good students A's and bad student's B's, then what's the point of C's D's and F's? To me, A five point scale is that, five points. I don't consider anything below a 5 to be searing, and I don't even see 2's or 1's as necessarily condemning either. To me, it's simply a review of "What you are great at" vs. "What you need to improve at." In other words, the interpretation of the scores seems to be really subjective to me; a "4" is still really good, and so is a "3" even. I only give "2's" or "1's" to those who need to improve, which my advisor does in some areas. I was grateful that she did not grill me about giving her low marks. I just tried to be fair.

As for helping her out in a sticky situation, I'm completely willing to do that too. If there is anything I can help this lady out with, whether it is a character reference or just moral support, I will do that.

[WornOutGrad]

Thanks for the posts guys. As for the whole "never below a 4" thing, I personally see it the same way I do grades. If you are only going to give good students A's and bad student's B's, then what's the point of C's D's and F's? To me, A five point scale is that, five points. I don't consider anything below a 5 to be searing, and I don't even see 2's or 1's as necessarily condemning either. To me, it's simply a review of "What you are great at" vs. "What you need to improve at." In other words, the interpretation of the scores seems to be really subjective to me; a "4" is still really good, and so is a "3" even. I only give "2's" or "1's" to those who need to improve, which my advisor does in some areas. I was grateful that she did not grill me about giving her low marks. I just tried to be fair.

As for helping her out in a sticky situation, I'm completely willing to do that too. If there is anything I can help this lady out with, whether it is a character reference or just moral support, I will do that.

What I meant to say above is not that I think the 1-5 scale is stupid if anything below a 5 is considered bad, it's that I'll be a lot more careful in how I use these evaluations in the future. But I still refuse to give an "A" for "C" work. That's what's wrong in academia now. You know how many dumb@$$ quizzes I have to grade because professors let that crap slide.

[Sigaba]

I'd rather throw this away than my principles and ethics, so I don't feel bad about what I am doing.

More and more, I have an issue with graduate students who describe themselves as "character" driven and report their own actions as a reflection of their "honesty," and then chalk up their self-inflicted misfortune to the "politics" of the Ivory Tower, or the ethical and moral failings of their professors.

What does it say about your principles and ethics that you had such strong negative views about a professor but that you were only willing to share your views anonymously and in a way that could cause her profound difficulties? Does your matrix of principles, values, and ethics give you the personal courage to go to a professor during his or her office hours, closing the door, sitting down, and saying "I've got an issue with the way you do X, Y, and Z?" If so, then why did you not take this course of action? In your journey of religious exploration, did you ever happen upon Matthew 7:12?

Or are these questions too political?

[eco_env]

At least in our department, with 1-3 grad students in a class, evaluations aren't anonymous at all. Just as advisors grow a thick skin to hearing things that don't agree with them, as a grad student you should get used to doling out fair and even handed assessment that you don't mind signing your name to.

Being a student, grad or undergrad, is a completely different situation from being a professor. Professors still have power over you. I don't want my professors knowing I'm the one that gave them a bad evaluation- if they feel my assesment is unfair, they might develop resentment towards me and evaluate me more harshly. If I (subconciously) resent a professor for what I percive as an unfair evaluation, there's not much I can do other than give a bad evaluation if I take a class with him/her again- in which case it's just one of several evaluations of his/her teaching, and eaching is not the most important part of his/her job anyway.

[WornOutGrad]

More and more, I have an issue with graduate students who describe themselves as "character" driven and report their own actions as a reflection of their "honesty," and then chalk up their self-inflicted misfortune to the "politics" of the Ivory Tower, or the ethical and moral failings of their professors.

What does it say about your principles and ethics that you had such strong negative views about a professor but that you were only willing to share your views anonymously and in a way that could cause her profound difficulties? Does your matrix of principles, values, and ethics give you the personal courage to go to a professor during his or her office hours, closing the door, sitting down, and saying "I've got an issue with the way you do X, Y, and Z?" If so, then why did you not take this course of action? In your journey of religious exploration, did you ever happen upon Matthew 7:12?

Or are these questions too political?

Wow, quoting bible verses on me, huh? I wrote nothing on that eval that I haven't or wouldn't share in person. The problem is that very few people in this world are able to differentiate constructive criticism from destructive, and thus take every form of criticism negative. I am no worse than the people who talk smack about people behind their backs and then do nothing about it. I'd rather be upfront about issues than pretend they don't exist. That's how cancer kills.

With that said, what in my incident would be considered "self-inflicting"? I provided an honest, fair evaluation that many people are unwilling to give anymore because of politics. I did nothing unethical or improper, and I'll sleep easy tonight knowing that. I think if people in this country cut off the brown nosing and were just honest and constructive, we would get back on the right track. Instead, everyone just kisses up to the person above them because they think that's going to get them ahead. Brown-nosing only gets you so far, having skills is what gets you farther.

[ANDS!]

But I still refuse to give an "A" for "C" work.

Don't teach. At least upper division (and definitely not graduate). I think you're slightly coping out; you say you have no problem giving a low grade, but was fearful of being called on it. If what you did was "right" - there shouldn't be any hesitation or fear.

Or are these questions too political?

Probably not. They are a bit preachy though; no pun intended.

[WornOutGrad]

Don't teach. At least upper division (and definitely not graduate). I think you're slightly coping out; you say you have no problem giving a low grade, but was fearful of being called on it. If what you did was "right" - there shouldn't be any hesitation or fear.

Probably not. They are a bit preachy though; no pun intended.

No, not fearful at all. If someone wants to call me out on my review, they have the right to. As long as they respect my right to give it. However, these reviews are supposed to be ANONYMOUS.

As for the whole not giving an A for C work... that's why the education of other countries is advancing well beyond our country. Grade inflation is a crock of $hit, and I'm not afraid to admit that! It's an insult to my education, and to the education of millions of Americans. Learning stuff isn't too hard if you apply yourself, no matter what level it is. God help anyone who takes my courses.

[Eigen]

Being a student, grad or undergrad, is a completely different situation from being a professor. Professors still have power over you. I don't want my professors knowing I'm the one that gave them a bad evaluation- if they feel my assesment is unfair, they might develop resentment towards me and evaluate me more harshly. If I (subconciously) resent a professor for what I percive as an unfair evaluation, there's not much I can do other than give a bad evaluation if I take a class with him/her again- in which case it's just one of several evaluations of his/her teaching, and eaching is not the most important part of his/her job anyway.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

Just because a professor has power over you doesn't make it a "completely different situation". Heck, every professor has another professor in the department with power over them due to seniority of some stripe.

It's not uncommon in my discipline for grad students to be part of hiring comittees and tenure review comittees, as well as department assessment committees. Grad students are junior colleagues, more than students. And at least in my department, there's a lot more that a grad student can do about a bad professor than an undergraduate, and certainly a lot more that can be done than just giving a bad evaluation.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Eigen

[ANDS!]

No, not fearful at all. If someone wants to call me out on my review, they have the right to. As long as they respect my right to give it. However, these reviews are supposed to be ANONYMOUS.

As for the whole not giving an A for C work... that's why the education of other countries is advancing well beyond our country. Grade inflation is a crock of $hit, and I'm not afraid to admit that! It's an insult to my education, and to the education of millions of Americans. Learning stuff isn't too hard if you apply yourself, no matter what level it is. God help anyone who takes my courses.

Grade inflation is not the same as fairly grading. I had an instructor who asked questions students really had no hope of answering fully; she had enough pedagogical experience to know exactly how to grade such problems.

In reality though, I doubt your courses will be much different. Unless you plan to have a short academic career.

[Sigaba]

They are a bit preachy though; no pun intended.

I was just picking up what was put down in the OP.

[robot_hamster]

I still don't understand how someone would even be put in this situation. I fill out course evaluations all the time. No one has ever called me into their office to ask me how I scored them on the evaluation. The evaluations are supposed to be anonymous. I don't care if the professor thinks someone doctored or changed the evaluations to make them look bad. The burden of proving it should not fall on the students. If someone higher up actually felt it was necessary to do an investigation, they should be the ones doing the investigating. Not the professor.

I apologize, but this scenario just doesn't sound right.

[joefc]

i probably wouldnt have answered if i could talk my way out of it.

if youre less than a year from graduating however, maybe it is best to suck it in and walk on eggshells around your advisor in regards to this situation. whats most important is to try and focus on a kickass thesis.

besides, it doesnt really seem like a big deal. this is baby politics compared to most things, and youre not really in the thick of it.

[dntw8up]

I share Sigaba's perspective and further hope that WornOutGrad's feelings of "awkwardness" suggest at least a subconscious awareness that kindness toward other people, especially in regards to their imperfections, is an ethical virtue with which s/he might benefit from greater familiarity.

[Centurion]

No, not fearful at all. If someone wants to call me out on my review, they have the right to. As long as they respect my right to give it. However, these reviews are supposed to be ANONYMOUS.

As for the whole not giving an A for C work... that's why the education of other countries is advancing well beyond our country. Grade inflation is a crock of $hit, and I'm not afraid to admit that! It's an insult to my education, and to the education of millions of Americans. Learning stuff isn't too hard if you apply yourself, no matter what level it is. God help anyone who takes my courses.

Okay, first of all, education policy analysist you are not. Taking an area as complicated as comparative educational achievement and pinning it all on "grade inflation" is what I would call "C work." That said, it seems to me the issue is you trying to divorce yourself and your views from the institutional constraints that the system exists in. Not taking into account the way your views are in turn viewed by the people who give your views real world impact is not ethical; in fact, it's quite the opposite. However, I don't really see a problem here. She asked you a question to collect evidence, you answered and gave her the evidence needed. I see a problem for the professor but not for you. I also don't see any real "politics" happening. Corruption? Maybe. But corruption and politics are not synonyms. For the benefit of your students and professors, however, I would recommend that you grade them on the scale that those grades will be evaluated on. You might think you are acting noble by your grading scale, but it is a collective action problem. You being a tough grader is not going to change anyone's opinion of grade inflation, so you are really doing everyone a huge disservice.

Edited April 2, 2012 by Centurion

[natsteel]

The fact is the OP filled out an evaluation according to their own criteria rather than the accepted criteria of those asking for the evaluation. What I mean is that the OP should have an understanding of how course evals are read and used. Giving a 1 or a 2 is considered a heavily damning rating by most administrations, regardless of whether you consider it as such on your own personal 1 to 5 scale. By "sticking to your morals," you gave the false impression that your advisor was incompetent in those areas you rated a 1 or 2, and those ratings will be a permanent blemish on that professor's teaching record. How is that moral? For me, the moral thing would be to understand that the evals are not being read according to your own criteria but by those of the administration and rated the professor accordingly rather than using a course eval as an opportunity to feel morally superior to the rest of academe and to make what you think to be a "statement" against grade inflation at the expense of your advisor.

[Andsowego]

To the OP,

It's totally unethical for a professor (even if they're your advisor and you have a good relationship) to ask a student to comment on their evaluation responses. In your situation, I likely would have said something like, "I'm really sorry to hear that there have been some discrepancies with your course evaluations, but I'm uncomfortable discussing my responses with you since they are meant to be anonymous. However, if there's a formal investigation in the future, I'd be happy to cooperate with whomever is conducting it." End of story. Easier said than done, I know!

It sounds to me like your advisor was testing you. She got the 1's/2's (maybe even a lot of them, and not just from you) and it created difficulty for her, and she can't possibly believe that anyone would rate her so low, so she decided to approach you and ask if you rated her HIGH (in effect, trying to trick you into feeling comfortable, since she was only asking you about the "good" stuff you wrote). She sounds pretty manipulative (and honestly, very clever in an evil genius kind of way). In the future, my advice would be to just uphold the professionalism, no matter what she asks you and no matter how hard it might be to refuse her request for information. She was completely in the wrong to ask you about your responses.

eta: I just read a couple of the posts re: whether or not giving 1's/2's is appropriate at all... my answer would be yes, but sparingly. I'm working on my 4th degree, and I've only ever given 1's/2's on a prof's eval twice in my entire academic career - once when the prof was completely abusive and used humiliation to control his students, and the second time when the prof was exhibiting signs of early alzheimer's and he gave the exact same lecture two weeks in a row and still couldn't remember my name after 3 months (in a class of only 10 people). I might give the odd 2 amongst an otherwise 3-4 list of responses, but it's very, very rare to give them unless the situation is totally dire (as I've described).

Edited April 8, 2012 by Andsowego

[TeaGirl]

What a strange discussion.

I've been both a student and a teacher, and I've given my fair share of 1's and 2's in my day (I've received none so far, thankfully). Considering that evaluations don't come with instructions on how damning a 2 is versus a 3, students are perfectly free to give the evaluation they think is fair according to how they interpret and experience the class. Even if one student gives an undeserved really low score, it evens out because there are other students in the class.

That said, the OP is perfectly in his right to give a low rating if he feels that it is deserved. None of us were in the class with him. He also has the right of keeping his evaluation anonymous. People saying that anything you do in private, you should have the courage to do in public, well, that's a nice sentiment. Reality doesn't work that way. This is the reason why voting is anonymous, and why student evaluations are anonymous. Because the people you are voting against, or evaluating, may have the power to harm you and screw you over if they turn out to be small minded people. You, however, can do little harm to them. It is also anonymous to keep the evaluations honest. Many people would unconsciously change how they vote or evaluate someone in public to conform to what others think.

Based on how the OP phrased it I wouldn't go so far as to say the professor is being unethical by asking him about his evaluation, since she didn't demand any details (i.e. which ones had a low score, and exactly how much that score was, etc.) And honestly, I don't think it's that big of a deal, or that any horrible politics is resulting from it.

[snarky]

I'm glad someone has raised this topic, because it confused me when I first came into grad school. Most/all of my evaluations have not been anonymous at all -- the classes are small and the professors know my writing style. I have rarely given low ratings, for precisely the reasons the OP states. At first this made me uncomfortable, but after being evaluated and knowing what things the evaluations influence, I don't think I feel that way anymore. If you really want to give constructive criticism without causing political fallout, the written questionnaire is the part to do that. You can give someone decent evals (in terms of numbers) but then offer suggestions for improvement in writing (e.g. "maybe try reorganizing the curriculum this way..."). If it were me, I would be much more receptive to criticism if it weren't accompanied by scores that would potentially affect my ability to get tenure, a promotion, etc., especially if I had genuinely put a lot of time/effort/care into teaching the class. Plus, in my experience the written section really distinguishes the students who just want to give the finger to the professor anonymously from the ones who genuinely want to give helpful feedback but feel uncomfortable doing that face to face.