Remember to fill out your autumn quarter teaching evaluations, DePaulians. The online teaching evaluation system will close tonight—Tuesday, November 18, 2014—at 11:59 p.m.

To quote the email from English department chair Lucy Rinehart:

“Low rates of response have been a growing problem since the implementation of the online evaluation system in 2009.  For the last two quarters, for example, only half of the students enrolled in English classes completed evaluations.  This means  that we don’t have a reliable record of the student experience of many of the classes taught in those quarters.

 

These anonymous evaluations are designed to be a key source of qualitative and quantitative information about teaching in our department.  Evaluations are used by instructors and departments in a number of ways to improve our instruction and curriculum.

• Instructors use them to assess and revise their courses—especially new courses.   (Instructors do not have access to evaluations until after the grading period closes.)
• The department uses them, along with syllabi review and peer teaching observations, to evaluate our colleagues’ teaching in annual reviews and tenure and promotion cases.”

As Cinderella’s fairy godmother would say, “On the stroke of twelve, the spell will be broken.” The system is anonymous, all. Give DePaul your input; the English department takes these evaluations seriously and wants to hear your voices.