In today’s Pope Center piece, Prof. Robert Weissberg argues that they are more likely to do the opposite. They tend to promote mediocrity and cause some profs to pander to students in the quest for nice evaluations.

In a course where most of the students are actually interested in learning, the professor certainly might benefit from their feedback. On the other hand, where the typical student is disengaged, ill-prepared, and enrolled in college principally to have fun, evaluations are at best a waste of time.